


Lonely Souls

by SmexyWatermelon



Series: These Sweet Deaths Of Mine [1]
Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Again, Anal Sex, Angst, Drunk Sex, Fluff and Angst, Gay Sex, Kissing, Lautey and Fina needed to go to therapy a long time ago, Logan startled by gay sex, Love/Hate, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Sex, Unrequited Love, happy ending? what happy ending?, possibly a little bit ooc, the undead's an ass, this is just a giant demon's ruins pun, this thing started off as a oneshot collection I swear, to the rescuee, wow there are so many sex tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-07-22 02:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of oneshots about Lordran adventure time, because I am one of the proud dozen people out here that ship Lautrec and the Chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The beginning of the end

The golden knight quickly descended the last set of stairs running, his armor clanking and screaking as he kicked the last black knights in front of him out of the way, making them trip to their deaths into the void.

He still couldn’t believe he had convinced himself to get to the kiln of the first flame: it was stupid, and dangerous, and he was going to get himself killed for sure; of course, being an undead as he was, it would have mattered very little, were it under normal circumstances. But after all, that was the main reason he had pushed himself this deep into the old lord of cinders’ lair: this was anything but normal;  
something strange and unique was going to happen: an undead, after all this time, was going to rekindle the first flame – or so the Undead had told, but Lautrec had lived long enough to know people better than that. He knew he could just let the flame die, and keep the great souls for himself, and if that happened... well, no more immortality for any of them.

He stopped in front of the main entrance of the gigantic colosseum: dust and ashes were covering everything, easily swept away by the wind. Everything was silent, and the First Flame had already faded into a weak light, the last embers quickly giving in to the cold embrace of Darkness. He inhaled sharply and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Undead!!”

He still refused to acknowledge his name. His stubbornness was the only thing he had got left: much to his displeasure, the Undead had already taken away his pride and – albeit he wouldn’t even admit it to himself – his heart.

He didn’t trust people easily; well, he didn’t trust people at all. But for a little moment, he had sworn this undead was different: maybe he would really rekindle the flame, as he kept saying; he had almost come to believe him.  
But then he had proceeded to trick so many of the people they had met along the way Lautrec was sure he was going to back up on his promise, leaving thus just two possible outcomes: he could rekindle the flame, or – more probably – kill the last lord and flee from Lordran for good.  
He realized he despised him so much because they were alike under many aspects, and that’s what scared him the most: he knew exactly what he would choose between being a martyr for a dying world and becoming the only God in a land ruled by Darkness.

He took quick steps into the arena, his metal boots sinking slightly into the soft ground; the place was becoming more and more dark by the minute, and he could hardly see anything at all; he could tell one thing though: there was no trace of Gwyn around. Or the Undead, for all that mattered.

So it was all done, the undead had left the place: even though he expected him to turn his back to Lordran and flee, as any mentally sane man would do, a little part of him felt hurt by this betrayal. At this point, he didn’t even know what he was doing here.

What was he thinking, when he let all those emotions stir him into this suicide mission? Did he want revenge against the undead? Or just savor the moment Gwyn would have slain him over and over again?  
He felt at a loss for words. The revenge certainly sounded more like him, but he knew it wasn’t that. He knew what he had been thinking back then, and that angered him even more: he couldn’t believe he, Lautrec of Carim, was fooled by his own naïve wish, thinking he could redeem – or better corrupt – the Undead’s ideals and convince him to let Lordran solve its problems by itself, let the whole world burn, if it meant that he could still live, that he could stay with him.  
The bittersweet feeling was soon followed by a wave of rage, mostly towards himself for falling for such a fool.

He dragged his palms over the sides of his helmet and pulled it off, inhaling sharply in the ashen air. He pressed his lips in a thin line, refusing to acknowledge his pain for the whole situation. His eyes darted to the ground out of habit, following the footprints the Undead and Gwyn had left during the combat. He could almost see him again in front of his eyes: parrying, dodging, bleeding.

He shook all those thoughts away, letting out a deep breath as he kept following the trail of blood with his eyes, until he spotted a body-like shape covered in ash: it was breathing.

The man in front of him was shocked by a fit of cough, the dust covering him falling to the sides of his body; he cracked one eye open, looking up at him: Lautrec could just return the stare as a heavy breathing Undead barely managed to whisper his name.

“L-Lautrec? What are you doing here?”

Lautrec stared at him wide eyed, not expecting this outcome: it didn't even cross his mind the possibility that the Undead could fail so badly. Unwilling to answer him, he dodged the question with a question “What happened to you?” he said in the most calm tone he could muster. The Undead closed his eyes and threw his head back, laughing with that mad grin of his. “Killed… Gwyn. He… wounded me badly. I couldn’t… the flame…” his tone was desperate, but he kept smiling. Probably it was the last thing he would ever do, and he knew it.

Lautrec tried to fight off the urge to run to the man, but his ego quickly gave in when he realized how bad the injuries of the Undead were: his right arm was laying bent at an impossible angle at his side, the wounds on his chest and torso had dampened his clothes with blood, creating a large pond of it still spreading underneath his body, a thick layer of dark blood covering his face. Lautrec took slow and steady steps, closing the distance between him and the Undead, his armor clanking at every movement.

He crouched behind him and carefully lifted his head and shoulders to make him rest on his lap: the undead winced and groaned in pain, his eyes shut and his eyebrows crooked in a painful expression. After a couple of seconds passed with none of them muttering a word, the undead whispered “Did you come here to gloat?” he opened his amber eyes and looked up at him, still panting lightly in pain: he had a horrible gash opening the left side of his face, his lid was barely holding up as it was impending to give in at any moment now.

“You know nothing pleases me as much as your deaths.” He replied in a low voice, grinning at him, keeping his mask up as he had always done with anyone, while the other man lowered his lids and grinned again, almost coughing while letting out a weak laugh “You’re such a jerk, Lautrec.” He let his hands discretely slither on the other man’s chest, feeling it rise and lower as he kept feebly breathing;  
Lautrec saw him shiver for the cold: some weeks ago, this view would have made him cheer and laugh at him; now he felt like something had grabbed him from the inside and was trying to yank his guts away.

The Undead gave him another wide smile “You should run, Lautrec.” The knight just stared at him, waiting for him to continue “Darkness always meant bad things crawling from the shadows. I’d hate if something happened to that ugly mug of yours and I wasn’t around to mend it.”  
Lautrec quickly licked his lips “I’ll take my chances here, with you and your horrid sense of humor.” Something changed in the Undead’s gaze while he said that: he looked… worried. Sincerely.

“Go.” He murmured, a strangled whine escaped his lips as another shiver ran down his body. “I’m not going anywhere.” “Lautrec-“ “I’m staying here, you idiot, like it or not.” 

Lautrec just shuffled him closer to his chest, lifting the Undead’s torso against his own, earning some disapproving grunts from the man. The Undead hummed and leant his head on his plated chest “I thought I would never see you again.” Lautrec wound his arms protectively around him, exhaling deeply “I felt like I owed you this much.”  
He inhaled deeply and raised his voice as much as possible “By the lords, Lautrec, just go. I’m gonna die anyway, at least you can still try to find a safe place.” In return Lautrec hugged him tighter against himself and leant his head on top of the Undead’s, exhaling deeply.

“Stop it.” The Undead seemed only more angered by those words “The hell I’m gonna drop this!” he winced again in pain, but he kept whispering “If you really want to help me in some way, get away from Lordran as soon as you can. Please.” The Undead tilted his head and looked up at him “I just want to know you’re somewhere safe.”

Lautrec gazed deeply into his eyes “I’m not leaving you.”

The Undead locked eyes with him, slowly closing the gap between them: Lautrec closed his eyes as he gave him a sweet chaste kiss, leaning into the warm feeling of his mouth against his. They parted a little, the Undead scanning his face, trying to understand his reaction, while Lautrec returned his gaze.

‘Oh, fuck it.’

He would have had all the time in the world to regret his decisions: for now he gently leant against him one more time, kissing him deeper, dragging him in a symphony of teeth and tongue that made his own head spin; he felt the Undead twisting in his embrace and pushing himself upwards as best he could, finding the perfect angle to let Lautrec kiss him; his left hand gently caressed Lautrec’s cheek as he broke their kiss, still close enough to feel his breath on his face, Lautrec’s lower face now completely covered in the Undead’s blood.

“How much time wasted…” he murmured, staring at him. He rested his head on the golden knight’s chest, closing his eyes.  
Lautrec grabbed his left hand, intertwining their fingers; “Maybe we’ll meet again. In another time, another life, where you won’t be so stubbornly heroic and I will lack my… charming skills.”

The Undead grinned “I doubt that will happen. But I really hope so.”

They stayed there together, whispering old stories to each other, waiting for the inevitable. In the end the Undead could muster one last smile:

“It was totally worth it freeing you from that cell.”


	2. Punishment time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what this is. Probably the 'I'm hating you but I could possibly be in love with you' part of their relationship.

Lautrec finally regained consciousness: his blurred vision slowly focused again as a horrible headache thundered from the middle of his brain. As he cracked his eyes open, he saw darkness enveloping him, a faint light from a torch was the only thing illuminating the man sitting in front of him.

“Morning, sweet cheeks!” at the sound of that voice, he clenched his teeth together.  
“I was starting to think I had hit you too hard…” He was resting on a big boulder, one leg on the ground and the other bent near his chest; he had no helmet on, exposing his messed up hair and smug grin, clearly mocking him. “Undead...” He growled, his nose crinkling as he glared at him.  
Lautrec looked down at himself: predictably, there was not even a single piece of his armor left; he felt almost naked without it, but he noted that he still had his ring on. Why the Undead had decided to leave it, was a mystery.

The man in front of him stood up and licked his lips, trying to put on a serious face “Glad to see your memory still works, mighty _Lautrec the Embraced._ ” 

Oh sweet Fina. He hadn’t just said that.

The Undead’s attempt to replicate his accent was good enough to piss him off. He should have known that facing him was a bad idea: too stubborn to give up, too mean to just let him die; this outcome was… predictable, at the very least.  
He faintly remembered the fight: he was positive about his chances at the time; he had managed to kill the Undead a couple of times at first, but then he had started fighting more seriously, giving up the idea of making Lautrec surrender; the two knights he had managed to cozen while fleeing to Anor Londo fell rather quickly: they weren’t the best warriors he had ever met, but he had had to prepare things in a short time and so he had to make do with what he had;  
With some insight, fleeing farther away would have been a better choice.

“What do you want?” he calmly hissed while the Undead stepped in front of him and crouched at his eye level. He flicked his forehead and smiled. “To mess with you, why else would I have kept you alive?”  
And there he was again, masking his true intentions underneath this stupid self; too bad he was so easy to read. Lautrec just stared at him, waiting to see where he wanted to go with this.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that: we’ll get to the part where I beat – again – the shit out of you for what you’ve done. But first things first: there’re people you have to apologize to.”

The Undead freed his legs from some of the chains that were binding him and yanked him back on his feet, grasping the back of his neck with his hand and guiding him around the place; they got to an elevator that brought them back to the surface: he had never had any interest in Petite Londo, so it was no wonder he hadn’t recognized the place earlier.  
As he pushed him towards the clearing just outside the keeper’s cell, Lautrec spotted the back of the blonde girl, trapped behind the bars once more.

“Anastacia? I brought you someone.” The girl turned around but immediately pushed herself against the wall in the back of the cave, panting lightly at the sight of her murderer. The Undead lifted defensively one hand up, the other still grabbing Lautrec’s neck. “Relax! He can do nothing to you right now.” He squeezed harder on his neck, making Lautrec shrug his shoulders in pain, and gave her a reassuring smile; Ana took some steps towards the bars: Lautrec noted how she had some color on her cheeks and looked less… ashly than when he had killed her.  
The Undead let go of him and crossed his arms on his chest “Lautrec? Didn’t you want to say something to this pretty lady here?” Lautrec didn’t reply, barely shifting his gaze to the side and letting out a small bored puff. The Undead suddenly slapped his buttocks hard enough to make him lose balance, making him take a couple of steps forward so not to fall. “Go on! Don’t be shy!”  
That earned him a hateful glare from the once golden knight “Don’t push it, Undead!” he snapped back, noting the way-too-pleased smile on the Undead’s face.  
He turned back to Ana and exhaled deeply. “I’m… sorry I killed you?” she took some steps forward, reaching the bars of her cell, and motioned to Lautrec to do the same. He complied, and when he was close enough she lifted her tiny hand and reached for his face: he didn’t even know what he was expecting to happen, but he was more than sure that slap hurt like hell;

Lautrec toppled in his restraints and fell back on the ground, if possible more shocked than hurt. “… take him out of my sight.” Lautrec didn’t see him, but he could have sworn the Undead was smirking from ear to ear “Aye aye, ma’am.”  
The Undead took him by his shoulders and easily lifted him up one more time, pushing him back the way they came, taking again the elevator.

“She’s rather… talkative now.” Lautrec couldn’t help but remark, bringing his tied up hands near his face to caress his cheek: she was so small… it was difficult to believe she could hit that hard. The Undead exhaled deeply, satisfied “She hasn’t expressed herself a lot ‘till now, but whenever she did, man, was it good to watch!”

The elevator came to an abrupt halt, and the Undead pushed Lautrec’s back, forcing him to step out of it and back to where he was previously bound. “You brought her back into that tiny little cell… doesn’t look such an act of kindness to me-“ he was barely able to finish his sentence, shut by the Undead’s fist smashing against his left cheek. He stumbled but managed to keep standing, quickly passing his tongue over the now injured side of his gums. He chuckled lightly, jeering at him: he knew the Undead was going to hurt him badly if he did so, but his desire to toy with him was so strong he couldn’t restrain himself. “So, tell me: you feel better now that you’ve helped someone? Eased the burden of your guilt?” another punch followed the first, hitting the other side of his face and making him spin around: he grabbed his chin, his eyebrows bending in a sorrowful expression, but a smile quickly replacing the pained grimace.  
“Or you want me to believe you sincerely cared about her?” a hook followed and he fell on the ground, leaning on his elbows and knees, a trickle of blood dripping down his chin. He spat out blood before turning around to face him.

Lautrec grinned at him “I didn’t think you valued a keeper’s life so much.” The Undead crouched down next to him “This is not about saving people. This is about respect.” He grabbed him from the collar of his vest, bringing their faces closer. “I fucking trusted you, Lautey. You could have asked at least before killing her.” He grinned and shut his eyes “Gods, you think I would have stopped you? Tch, you know how many fire keepers are there around the place you could have easily killed? You just had to pick the one I treasured the most...”

“Oh, I see. You are using the ‘respect’ excuse this time, mmh?” the Undead narrowed his eyes and glared at him “What are you talking about?” Lautrec couldn’t help but smirk “Don’t treat me like the proud stupid you think I am.” The Undead kept gazing into his eyes, a doubtful expression painted on his face.  
“You love being in control. That’s why you hate me so much;” the Undead hold his breath, probably unconsciously “I don’t-“ “I’m the only variable that you can’t control, no matter what you do. But you don’t dislike it. Actually…” He got closer to the Undead face, carefully analyzing his reactions “You are unable to go on without someone like me, aren’t you?” the Undead’s pupils kept dilating as he kept approaching, his breath turning into feeble gasps as he felt Lautrec’s breath on his face.

“You yearn for surprises, for the unexpected…” Lautrec kept closing the distance between them, the Undead’s lips almost touching his “And that’s why you love me so much.” The Undead looked down at him, still not processing what was happening: Lautrec stopped and grinned wickedly, and when the Undead realized he had just fell into Lautrec’s trap, he immediately pushed himself back to his feet, away from him.

Lautrec kept sneering and shaking his head “I wasn’t sure of it at first, but why else would you have saved me? It all comes back to this.” He looked straight up to him, disgusted “You’re pathetic, Drake.”  
The Undead felt momentarily at a loss for words, but he slowly regained his composure. He licked his lips again before speaking. “At least I tried to save people. Save… even you.” He slightly shook his head “Tonight we’re going to decide what to do with you. I don’t have to tell you Ana and the Crestfallen would both gladly see you go hollow.” He turned on his heels and headed towards the lifter. “I guess we’ll see in the morning. Goodnight, Embraced.”

Lautrec leant back on the rock wall and watched as the Undead slowly made his way back, slouching his legs on the ground.  
‘Don’t you dare.’ He told himself, biting and licking the blood on his lower lip, distracting himself from the view ‘He does not deserve to be pitied.’

\---

He was almost sure night had come and passed: Petite Londo always looked the same, the snarls of the hollows the only company he could afford right now.  
He kept thinking back at what he had told to the Undead: the look of defeat on his face was surely priceless, but he had started to question whether he had pushed it too far; sure, the Undead had never done anything he had been told to, and he could have easily ignored the others’ opinion if it meant sparing Lautrec's life, but he kept feeling like he had misjudged the situation;

As he reassured himself for the umpteenth time he heard the gears of the lift creaking as they moved and finally came to a halt, quick steps thumping on the ground towards him: the Undead strode around the corner wielding a sword in his right hand; he raised it, preparing to strike: Lautrec had barely the time to think as his survival instincts kicked in, making him raise his palms to defend himself; he unconsciously closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to bloom from his arms.

The sword cut through the air, and a clanking sound was heard echoing in the caves.

The chains fell gradually from his body, gathering on the ground; Lautrec massaged his wrists as the Undead just stared down at him and dropped a sack that landed on the ground with a metallic thump.  
“You’d better move before they make me change my mind.”  
He took a couple of steps back as Lautrec opened the sack and when he saw what it was he immediately started putting back on his old golden armor without as much as a question. “Andre gave it a quick look: he patched it up, but it won’t hold for long if you don’t properly fix it.”  
Lautrec didn’t thank him and the Undead didn’t expect him to: he had to admit he missed the old times when Lautrec had to act all servile to convince him to open that goddamn cell.

Worst. Mistake. Of his lives.

They used the elevator in silence, the Undead with his signature helmet on half open, while Lautrec was keeping his one between his elbow and hipbone, resembling vaguely the proud knight he must have been once, before falling for the Goddess.

The lifter halted harshly again: Lautrec and the Undead exchanged a quick glance with each other before the golden knight turned around and started walking away, but after taking a few steps he heard the Undead call him.

“…Lautrec?”

He stopped but didn’t turn around, waiting for him to continue

“Why did you leave that black eye orb behind? Why didn’t you just flee?”

The knight didn’t answer right away, as if he was thinking about it. Maybe it was time he showed some honesty to that undead: just that little bit he needed to go on, so he could save more people, save the flame, save the world as they knew it.

“For the same reason you let me live, I guess.”

He turned slightly his head to look at him with the corner of his eye. “I like surprises too.”

He turned around and put on his helmet, walking towards the daylight at the end of the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the line the Undead quotes from Lautrec was part of the unused dialogue. Unused sexy dialogue...mmmm this game inspires so much yaoi dammit  
> Anyway it was along the lines of ‘how dare you insult Lautrec the embraced’. Just so you know. Yeah, I know you don’t wanna know, but now you know.


	3. Bargains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I hate getting in too much details because I wanted to have an Undead as generic as possible, but I thought about my little psycho zombie’s past for a long while, so I happen to throw his previous misadventures here and there from time to time. (aka Sorry about that)
> 
> Also, Queelan’s a precious cinnamon roll that needs to be protected and Solaire belongs to Gwyn's family; I’m not going to budge about this topics.

His visits to the fair lady had become more and more frequent: it was heartbreaking to think she was dying in this state, secluded in that little room, without even knowing her sister had in fact been killed. Maybe it was guilt forcing him to act like this, but he was always happy to share his humanities with Queelan, even if it meant getting a little bit more weak every time.

He drew back his hands as his strength stopped flooding into the fair lady’s ones: he took a deep breath, stumbling back, his head spinning for a little moment; as he regained his composure he saw the lady had slightly regained some color on her cheeks. “Thank you… dearest Undead…”

He had at least managed to introduce himself after getting that damn old witch’s ring: it had cost him more than a couple of deaths to earn it, but it had totally been worth it. “Rest easy, m’lady: I’ll return with more humanities as soon as possible.” She nodded lightly and gathered her hands back on her chest, a little smile creeping on her lips. “In this dark age we’re living in you’re a most reassuring light, my keen subject.” He somehow found himself smiling at her words: even though being called someone’s ‘subject’ had always upset him, this time he felt almost relieved the fair lady was taking him in such great consideration.

He walked outside of the place and climbed upstairs, when he heard metallic noises approaching: as he turned around he swung his sword near the newcomer’s neck, just to freeze when he realized a shotel was pointed centimeters from his own throat.

“We meet again.” He stated as his amber eyes scanned the golden helmet in front of him, looking for the wearer’s eyes. His enemy lightly chuckled as he sheathed his blade “Distraught men often find death on their paths.” The Undead sheathed his weapon as well, but kept his hand on the hilt, unsure about the golden knight’s intentions “Yeah, it’s nice seeing you too, Lautrec.”

The Undead knew him too well to hope he hadn’t eavesdropped; “Curious how I should meet you so deep in Blight town.” He had no reason to be here but the fair lady, and that could only mean troubles – as anything concerning Lautrec always had up to that point.  
The knight shrugged “Every man has got his motives, I guess.” The Undead exhaled deeply: he didn’t want to put her in danger for so little; he had to do something about him “Drop this façade, ok?” “I know not what you’re talking about.” the Undead couldn’t see his face, but he swore he could _feel_ Lautrec smirk behind that helmet .  
The Undead looked up: Lautrec wasn’t an unreasonable person, he just liked to think he was smart enough to serve his goddess _and_ survive his actions without consequences.  
“You know what? I’ll just put it plainly: I know you know. About Queelag’s sister, and her power.”  
If he gave him another option, there was a slight chance he may have listened to him; unless he had prepared an ambush and was ready to slaughter him, but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have wasted so much time talking.

The Undead looked quickly back towards the fair lady’s chamber and bit his lip. “I won’t let you hurt her.” “My, is that an accuse, dear friend?” “Maybe. I get nervous when you’re around a fire keeper: it’s not like you haven’t precedents.” Lautrec kept fiddling with his parrying dagger and the Undead clenched his fingers on the hilt of the sword at his side.

“But if you’re in need of a keeper’s soul that desperately, then,…” the golden knight remained silent: that must have got his attention.  
“…I might be able to help you. In exchange for your promise to never harm the keeper residing here nor any of her servants.”

Lautrec silently weighed his offer, dragging then his palms over the sides of his helmet and taking it off, staring right into the Undead’s eyes.  
“You have my word.” He lifted his hand and the Undead grabbed it, but before shaking it he pulled Lautrec nearer him, talking to him face to face. “If something should happen to her, none of your tricks will help you. I will catch you and let you starve for humanities until your bones will be whitened by the sun and your flesh devoured by hounds.”

A little smirk curved the Embraced’s lips “If you think you’re up to it, Undead…” Lautrec surprised the Undead by getting even closer to him, tilting his head and whispering into his ear “I haven’t forgotten what we’ve talked about. I yearn for the day you’ll stop being so… predictable.” he let go of him and took a couple of steps back, heading towards the exit and putting his helmet back on.

“Lead the way, Chosen.”

\---

It hadn’t taken them long to reach Anor Londo: the Undead closed his eyes as a warm wind swept over his face, gently caressing his hair back while the winged demons loudly dropped Lautrec beside him, who landed on his side and slowly stood up, grumbling, while the demons shrieked at him and flew away.  
“What did you do to them?” the Undead asked without opening his eyes “Me? Tch, you must have seen wrong…” “Maybe… but they looked pretty upset after seeing you.” He murmured as he cracked one eye open, seeing Lautrec dusting off his armor, looking quite pissed about the treatment he had just been given and even more about the Undead noticing it.

“Didn’t you mention a firekeeper?” he stated abruptly, and the Undead exhaled deeply and started descending the long set of stairs, heading towards the bonfire.  
“Let me do the talking.” He murmured back to Lautrec while getting closer to the fire, where a shadow was leaning on the opposite side of the room.  
“Chosen…” the darkmoon knightess tilted slightly her head to the side. “…it’s been a while since you last visited.”

“Aww, you thought I forgot about my favorite keeper? Don’t be silly.” She kept staring at him, a long moment of silence followed “Flattering. But we both know it isn’t true.” She then motioned to Lautrec, who was surprisingly obeying the Undead and keeping silent at his side. “Who is your friend?”

He chuckled lightly “You know, this is a funny story.” He paced towards one of the sides of the keeper and Lautrec headed in the opposite direction, cornering her between them and the wall. “He’s more a trader than a friend, actually. Unluckily…” sensing danger, the knightess put her hand on the hilt of her sword, but before she could move Lautrec had already sprinted and plunged his shotel in her flesh; she kicked herself free of his grip but doing so she exposed her back to the Undead, who kicked the back of her knees and hold her helmet up with one hand.  
“…you’re the goods I’m bargaining.” He murmured before chopping her head off with a single swift movement.

Lautrec kneeled down and picked gently the soul from her lifeless body, careful not to strangle the little gleam in between his armored fingers.  
“And now that you have your precious soul… What will you do with it?” “Excuse me?” the Undead snorted “Is it because of Fina? You still think she’s somewhere around the place, waiting for you?”  
“You know not what you’re speaking of.” The tone was calm, but he could tell Lautrec was angered by his words.

“I will leave your precious spider lady live, and you’ll stop following me, Undead. That was the deal.” “Oh, I don’t recall ever mentioning the last part.”

“Stop talking as if you knew me! You know nothing about me.” “But I know this won’t help.” His voice cracked a little, something in his tone betrayed his concern. “I know what it’s like to live for someone else. Trust me, it won’t take you anywhere.”

The golden knight turned his back to him and headed back towards the plaza. “I’m letting you live because you just proved to be useful; keep talking like that and I won’t be as merciful.”  
The Undead silently watched as Lautrec headed back outside, his armor shining in the light of the city of the gods.

\---

“Why. Isn’t. This. Working!!” the Undead heard clanking and thumping noises coming from inside the Undead Parish: he took a deep breath and headed inside, diving against the wall beside the entrance just in time to dodge a piece of armored leg that had been thrown through it. He peeked inside, seeing Lautrec kicking the corpses of some dead soldiers, the soul of the keeper placed exactly in the same spot on the altar as the one he had found the first time he had come to Lordran. He rolled his eyes “Talking about being predictable…”

Lautrec snapped back at him, staring him down for a moment, clearly distressed by his only presence. “Everything’s fine?” the Undead asked with a pleasant smile plastered on his face; the golden knight slightly regained his composure “Yes.”  
He exhaled deeply and paced back towards the altar, putting his hands on both sides of the keeper’s soul and leaning on the table, staring at it.

After a long silence, he spoke “I told you not to follow me.” “Who, me? I wasn’t following you. Just looking around. Besides,” the Undead cautiously paced inside the room, expecting Lautrec to throw something at him anytime now. “It wasn’t difficult to find you, with all this din.” He looked down at the soul, then back to him.

“How long have you been in here?” he clenched his fists tighter at the soul’s sides “…Not enough, I suppose.” He was really still serious about it… the Undead had hoped he would have seen it first, but that wasn’t happening, apparently …

“Lautrec…”

The Undead put a hand on his shoulder, but he yanked it away “Just shut up! I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t need it right now.”  
He looked like he was about to explode, and the Undead was just thinking about giving a huge kick to all of his beliefs to speed up the process “Just look at yourself! She may never answer you.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about! How could you comprehend such a deep bond!?”

He hadn’t still moved from the altar, so the Undead stepped closer to him “Why don’t you just realize she will never come! She could be dead, I’ve killed plenty gods myself!” he shouted, opening his arms, but he could tell Lautrec was barely listening. “You should accept this explanation, else it means she just got tired of toying with the stupid fool yo-“ Lautrec turned around so quickly the Undead didn’t even see the punch coming: he faltered back holding his jaw, feeling the coppery taste of blood flooding into his mouth. “Get out of my sight!” the Undead swept the blood away with the back of his hand and took a step backwards, looking up as Lautrec turned back to stare at the soul, before turning around and walking out of the chapel.  
He had pushed him on the right path, but now he had to walk by himself through the threshold.

\---

Lautrec kept looking at the soul, closing his eyes from time to time to try to sense his goddess, but nothing ever changed inside the chapel; no swirls of smoke appearing from nowhere, no gentle smile welcoming his faithfulness, none of her scent filling the air.  
He knew in a little, secluded part of himself, that she would never come ever again; but he had refused to acknowledge it for so long now it was too difficult to accept.

After hours had passed he finally took a step away from it, yet nothing happened. Fina used to mock him and get angry whenever he showed such little faith in her, but now… Now she was gone, for real.  
He took in a deep breath, letting the truth slowly seep through his mind, and he slowly headed out of the chapel with a low gaze: as he stepped near the threshold, he spotted the lean figure of the Undead sitting near the entrance of the path that led towards Sen’s fortress; he was seemingly uninterested, as he kept sharpening his blade with a whetstone, but when he spotted Lautrec he looked up and stared at him, without moving.

Lautrec returned his gaze and walked out of the chapel, his head hanging low and his feet slouching on the ground; he sat on the stairs outside and took off his helmet, placing it beside him.  
He heard steps approaching: the Undead stopped a couple of meters in front of him, gazing down at him. He looked away, sure he was going to remark how his attempts had just been failures, how he was right since the beginning and Lautrec was too hopeless to admit it.  
But instead he sat down next to him, fiddling with something between his hands.

“I know how you feel. And before cutting me off with some more of your bullshit, hear me out.” Lautrec didn’t move, but looking at the corner of his eye he recognized the object the Undead was holding: a ring of the evil eye. One of Astora’s most treasured artifacts.  
“I was once, before all of this, one of the most trustworthy guards of Astora’s king. I trusted him with my life, since honor and respect were the bases with which all knights-to-be were brought up.” He made a pause and exhaled deeply, recalling memories that had been too fateful for him to be swept away by the curse “I worked as a spy in other kingdoms, silently gathering information for my king. One day, to lay the bases for a new peace with our powerful neighboring land, he sold me out. Just like that.”

He grinned, one of his usual grins that curved his lips whenever he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: he let the last sunlight of the day play on the surface of the ring as he turned it around. “At first it hurt: I had lost the only thing that mattered to me at the time. Being an Astora knight was my life; but then I realized I could do whatever I wanted to: I was finally… free.” He looked up, a satisfied smile plastered on his face. “And my first actions as a free man were breaking out of prison and facing that bastard again, cutting his fingers off one by one.” He lifted the ring between his thumb and middle finger and let it slide back on his index, where it apparently belonged now.

“You’re a… kingslayer, then?” he grimaced at the word “Oh no: I’m not a monster. I just mutilated him a little, so he could remember that betraying my services came with a price.” The Undead lightly tapped his knee against Lautrec’s one “I do know what’s like to feel abandoned. I didn’t mean to pry, I just wanted you to realize it sooner.”  
Lautrec inhaled sharply and looked away from the Undead: he was one of the strangest man he had ever met, and he had traveled a lot after forsaking Carim’s knighthood. “Why do you care so much?” it was a stupid question: he already knew about the Undead’s liking for him, but this… he was at his side even when he had promised not to be, even when he had pushed him away.  
This had gone far beyond a mere infatuation. 

The undead grinned back at him and looked down, biting lightly at his lower lip.  
“Because if I were that deity I’d never get tired of you.”

It had to be either madness or love, but he couldn't tell which one. Probably both.


	4. Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lautrec and the Undead had planned to put aside their differences and have a good night's sleep; then wine made them change their plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yippie-a-yay I'm finally writing about sex.

For being a big city crowded with mindless undead, the Burgh was quite quiet in the last hours of the afternoon: the Undead steadily paced through the big plazas he had cleared for what looked like the millionth time, headed towards a safe refuge for the night.  
He had been away from Firelink Shrine for quite some time now, but he knew gathering more souls was a priority, else he didn't stand a chance against the possessors of the Great Souls he had yet to face.

He quietly walked up the stairs on top of which was located a little apartment he had managed to secure: when he reached the top, he was too busy musing about the thought of a good night's sleep to notice the only window facing a very climbable wall laying slightly agape; when he approached the door he briefly looked for the ancient rusted keyring attached to his belt and picked one of the many keys he had collected during his journeys: the lock clunked open and he stepped through the threshold, immediately dropping out of habit his shield and weapon on the ground.  
The living room, if one could call it that way, was very poor and dark: he had managed to snatch a couple of things from the other buildings, but accomplishing a moving in the middle of continuous and infinite battles was no easy task.  
He froze when he heard movement coming from his left: without his battle-sharpened reflexes he wouldn't have even seen the punch coming; he parried the hits and managed to counter a couple of the intruder's attacks, and in the process he backed further towards the centre of the room.  
He tried to attack him directly but the stranger dodged his punch by lowering on the ground, kicking the Undead's ankle with all his strenght: he landed on the floor on his back and the other man soon followed, kneeing his stomach and kicking the air out of his lungs. As the Undead lifted his arms to shield his face from any further attacks, the assailant suddenly stopped.

"..Chosen?"

He slightly moved his hands to be able to take a peek at the man: as he looked up, a familiar face returned his stare, framed by those dark locks he had dreamt about grabbing so many times, while fantasizing about how his moans would have sounded like... let's just say that whenever the Undead had thought about the other man straddling him, this kind of scenario had never occurred.

"We should stop meeting like this." Lautrec said as he lowered the fist he had almost smashed on his face: he was almost sitting on top of him, his knee pushing on the middle of the Undead's chest to keep him stuck on the ground, while his hand was tightly grabbing the collar of his tunic.  
The Undead forced some air back inside of his lungs and sighed "Agreed."  
Lautrec stood up and waited for the Undead to do the same, glaring at him with his pitch black eyes.  
"I would have never thought of meeting you here, of all places. Aren't you supposed to be slaying gods?" The Undead slowly stood up, brushing the dust from the front of his clothes. "I'm working on it."  
He returned Lautrec's stare, and his signature grin was back on in no time "Since when you are breaking into houses?"  
The golden knight shrugged "I'd never willingly refuse a safe night of sleep. Besides, I didn't think anyone would have come back inside the house anytime soon. Especially you." He drawled the last two words in a low, grumpy voice; "But who am I to kick a man out of his own house?"  
The Undead slightly snickered, noticing that Lautrec had already stripped part of his armor. "Like you would ever be up to the task." Lautrec slyly grinned at the Undead's remark and paced towards the chairs and table in the inner part of the room.

The Undead stepped near a little chest, lifting the lid to check on the little belongings he had left there: the dozen wine bottles he had "borrowed" from the nearest canteen were laying untouched. He quickly glanced at Lautrec and then lifted two of the bottles, which clinked with the others as he took them out; "I see you haven't helped yourself to the wine." He regained Lautrec's attention, who gave him a glare that told him that if there still was some wine it was just because he hadn't found it _yet._  
The Undead grinned as he paced towards the table and handed him one of the bottles, which he accepted gladly.  
Lautrec sat on one of the chairs while opening the bottle whilst the Undead did the same.  
They raised the bottles to lightly tinkle them together.  
"As dwarves say, drinking alone is almost as bad as shitting in company." Lautrec narrowed his eyes at the Undead's statement "You're quite an odd one." He murmured as he put his feet on the table and took a long sip from the bottle.

\-------------

He had lost count of the bottles something like a whole lot of wine ago: as a warm feeling kept spreading through his belly and chest, he told himself that it probably didn't matter. Lautrec looked almost as trashed as he was: albeit he resisted a bit longer, the wine had clearly got him too; he kept staring around heavy-lidded, taking from time to time a sip from the bottle.  
During the evening they had slowly taken off their armors: the Undead had taken off both his tunic and chainmail, leaving on just his trousers and shirt, while Lautrec was still wearing part of his lower armor and boots but had completely discarded the upper part of his vest, claiming 'the night was too hot for it.'

It really wasn't that hot, but the Undead would have never dared telling him otherwise.

After a while Lautrec stood up and got near the tiny window, gazing in the distance: great part of the now dead city could be seen from up there.  
As he kept drinking from his wine bottle the Undead absent mindedly took a peek at his broad shoulders, trying to guess where and how he could have got all the scars that were adorning his back; his eyes then traveled further down: albeit still armored, he had fantasized about his shapely ass for so long he could almost see it underneath all those layers of metal.  
The golden knight slowly stretched his arms behind his head: the Undead grabbed tightly the edge of the table and almost sunk his nails into it as he heard the faint pops of the man's spine and a sly grunt, wishing he could give him other reasons to stretch and pant.  
Just as he had stood up Lautrec went back sitting without as much as muttering a word.

Lautrec was soon going to finish another bottle: he kept drinking until he had to tilt his head backwards to finish it, letting the Undead gaze as his throat moved rhytmically to let the sweet fluid pass; at that sight the Undead realized his mouth was feeling extremely dry: he managed to gulp and put his bottle on the ground, standing up to fetch another one.  
His legs briefly wobbled under his weight: he managed to regain some of his composure and reach for the chest one more time; he bent down to pick a bottle and when he stood up again he saw Lautrec stepping at his side.  
"I always figured you'd be one of those that kept blabbing non-stop when drunk."  
The truth was that the Undead actually was one of those people, but if he dared say anything right now he was surely going to sexually harrass Lautrec pretty badly.  
He hummed a negative "Uh-hu." as a response and procedeed to pull the cork of the bottle away with his teeth and spit it on the floor, drinking a generous quantity of wine in hope of being able to kick himself unconscious before making his relationship with the other knight even more awkward.

When his lips parted from the glass ones of the bottle Lautrec took it out of his hands and drank from it: a little drop of wine escaped from his mouth and traced the outline of his chin and neck, dripping then on his pectoral and stopping at the height of his well defined abs; the Undead followed the trail mesmerized, and when he realized he was staring the golden knight it was too late: suddenly his pants felt a lot tighter than before, and he immediately wished he had never stood up from that chair in the first place.

"Shit." He couldn't help but murmur, his boner poorly masked by his shirt; he didn't even want to think what Lautrec would have done if- "So you still have that stupid crush on me, uh?" He smirked while taking another sip of wine, clearly noting the Undead's trouble downstairs...  
'Lords help me.'  
"Well... if you want to put it that way..." the Undead didn't have the nerve to look at him: instead, he kept looking down, his cock painfully shaping a tent against his pants.  
"I don't see a lot of ways to put it." The man crossed his arms on his chest, his expression out of the blurred vision of the Undead.

The Undead suddenly laughed, dragging the palm of his hand on his face "I fucking hate this situation where I can't just shove my dick down your throat and be over it."  
As soon as the Undead finished the sentence the realization of what he had just said dawned on him like a fat assed asylum demon raining from the sky: the little part of his brain that wasn't completely drowning in alcol made him slap a hand on his mouth; blood flushed on his cheeks turning them into a pinkinsh color.

"Since when you are so full of perversions?"  
"What, you really need to hear it?" The Undead hungrily glared at him: he knew that Lautrec was capable of seeing what was happening to him, but his reticence to ease the situation was somehow making him even more aroused. "It's weeks I dream about fucking you, Lautrec. And this-" he paused to glance at his muscular torso "-is not helping. At all." He kept staring him as he finished the sentence; "Now could we please go back to getting drunk so I may later go jerk myself thinking about your pretty ass sitting on top of me?"  
Of course, Lautrec could have told him he wasn't the only one visited by such thoughts recently; but that would have required a level of drunkness humanly impossible.

The Undead didn't know what to expect from the situation: as a general rule, he always expected for the worst; so he was well more than surprised when Lautrec placed his hands on his chest and pushed him until his back hit the wall: he had barely the time to gasp before the knight smashed his lips into his;  
At first he didn't reciprocate, almost too shocked (and way too drunk) to take it all in, but when he felt Lautrec's tongue licking his lips and demanding for entrance he was suddenly taken back to reality: he dragged his hands over the other's forearms, pulling him towards himself as he hungrily explored his mouth with his tongue and teeth.  
Lautrec's hands moved to his sides, tucking his thumbs inside his pants and pulling him closer, while the Undead started working to take off the rest of his armor.  
As his nimble fingers finally took the plates on his hips away Lautrec broke their kiss and started nibbling and sucking at his neck: the Undead moaned while he tried to focus enough to take off the rest of the armor, but it was hard to do so with Lautrec leaving a trail of sloppy kisses on the side of his neck. His hands started a little bit as he felt him sucking hard on his skin: he stopped moving, somehow enjoying the stingy sensation. "If you keep on, you'll leave signs." He felt Lautrec suck at it some more before parting a little, his thumb brushing over the hickey and his lips still ghosting on his skin as their gazes met once more. "That's what I wanted."

The Undead looked at him with an annoyed glance before focusing back down on his waistpiece. "How the fuck do I get you out of this...?" He faintly murmured, wanting nothing more than begin to please properly the other man.  
Lautrec began to take off the last article of his armor. "You would have been a terrible pageboy." The Undead snickered at that statement "Indeed I was."  
Lautrec smirked at him and undid the last belts of his armor, letting it clunk on the ground, without letting his stare move from the Undead's eyes;  
He smiled again as he cupped Lautrec's face and deeply kissed him, letting the knight's hands roam his body.  
The Undead took one of Lautrec's hands and squeezed it lightly. "There's a bed in the other room." he murmured as he tried to pull Lautrec behind him, but he had something else in mind. "Too far."  
Lautrec turned him back towards him and resumed their kiss: he wrapped the Undead in his arms and made him trip backwards, making them both drop on the ground with a muffled thump on the dusty carpets.  
The Undead was eager to protest, but at the moment there were just too many tongues in his mouth.

He felt Lautrec tugging at the hem of his pants and before he knew it he was already yanking them away; in return the Undead pushed him on his back and pulled away one of his boots: Lautrec kicked away the other, leaning on his elbows to heave himself the little he needed to meet the Undead halfway and kiss him again on his plump lips; the Undead climbed on his lap and helped him sit up, winding his arms around his waist and then dragging them to his hips.  
When he broke the kiss he reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it above his head, discarding it on the ground; Lautrec stared him up and down, licking his lips. "Quite a view." The Undead appreciatively hummed as the other man roughly caressed his torso from below his navel to his nipple, pinching it lightly and making a little shiver run down his spine.

Lautrec himself wasn't sure about what was making him act that way: he just knew he had enough blood to make one head work at a time, and now it clearly wasn't the turn of the one attached to his neck.  
He kept feeling his blood thumping in his temples: it had surely been a while since he had last had his way with a woman, but now that heat was pleasantly traveling towards his groin he could tell that being with a man wasn't that different.

Before he could even think about it, he had already placed his hand on the Undead's throat: old habits die hard, he told himself as he roughly rubbed his hand against the man's skin. "Get off of me. If we're doing this, we're doing it my way." The Undead's amber eyes idly looked at him as he faintly licked his lower lip. "Make me." The tone of the Undead made something stir in Lautrec's pants: he brushed his thumb against the adam's apple of the other man, tightening then the grip on his throat possessively; the Undead closed his eyes and sighed as his palms and fingers softly traced the contours of Lautrec's streamlined muscles: as his fingers traveled further down he heard the other man stifle a moan and loosen the grip on his neck, somehow encouraging him to continue.  
The Undead palmed Lautrec's erection through his pants: this time he moaned loudly and dragged his hand from his throat to the back of his neck, pulling the Undead nearer him and softly kissing and nibbling at his collarbone; the Undead threw his head back and started undoing Lautrec's pants, feeling his hands roam his sides as he did so: Lautrec digged his nails in his sides when the Undead finally reached inside the front of his pants to pull his lenght free;  
Lautrec felt the Undead's calloused fingers wrap around his shaft and give it a gentle stroke before enveloping it in his palm and pumping slowly. Lautrec stifled another moan and leant his forehead against the Undead's one, reaching for him from time to time to leave a kiss on his lips, his hands never leaving the Undead's buttocks.

The Undead pushed on his chest and Lautrec was caught so off guard he easily fell down, hitting his back against the floor. When he attempted to sit up again the Undead placed a hand on his chest, keeping him in place; he then leant above him and started kissing his neck, slowly but steadily making his way down his torso.  
When he arrived at the height of his waist he gently grasped the base of his cock and licked along its lenght, smacking a sloppy kiss on top of it. Just when he felt his lips take in the head of his cock Lautrec released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

The Undead took inside his mouth inch after inch, feeling Lautrec's pulse accelerating as he slowly reached for the hilt of his cock. He then sucked him back until just the tip was left in his mouth;  
He bobbed his head up and down a couple of times, each moan escaping from Lautrec's lips making him harder and harder.  
When he took him completely inside his mouth for the third time he felt his hands reaching for the back of his head. "Gods, you're good." He pulled at his hair lightly as he sucked back up, earning another deep moan that suffocated between Lautrec's lips.  
"Tch, you think it's my first time with a man?" Lautrec brushed his face with his hands, trying to regain some lucidity: now that he had pointed it out, it was a stupid question. He covered his eyes with his forearm. "At first. But then I saw how good that little mouth of yours is at sucking cock." He quickly stole a glance at the Undead and stifled another moan, letting his hand roam to the back of the head of the Undead, pushing him back to work.  
The Undead followed his hand and bobbed his head up and down, sucking eagerly and drinking his precum.  
He was feeling his own precum dripping from his cock and he kept fighting against the urge to touch himself and get free of the tension that was building inside his stomach.

He had never thought his first time with Lautrec would have been like this: to begin with, he had never believed he would be able to convince the other man; as he looked up at Lautrec, panting and moaning, he realised he didn't want to end it so soon; he grabbed Lautrec's hand with his own and raised himself enough to look him in the eyes "If I continue I'll make you cum much earlier than I wanted you to."  
Lautrec unwillingly let go of him, trying to concentrate to understand what he wanted to do. After the Undead's ministrations he was feeling very dizzy: he managed to sit up and give a heavy lidded look at the Undead, who looked about to come just then and there.  
"I'll admit it: I'm a little puzzled about how to work this out."  
The Undead simply smirked at him: that usual grin that said 'leave it to me'.  
He climbed back on his lap, placing the underside of his cock against his own, and wrapped their cocks in his hand, giving a first explorative stroke;  
Lautrec just moaned, a blissful expression painted on his face. "How's it?" The man grabbed his hips and squeezed them. "Don't you dare stop."  
The Undead started pumping with a quicker pace: soon enough Lautrec decided to stifle his moans by biting on the Undead's shoulder, hard enough to send another shiver down his spine.

They were too weary to resist for long: with some more strokes they both cummed together, their seed splashing on their bellies; the Undead moaned louder and Lautrec bit him harder, breaking his skin: a little crimson droplet run down his bicep, but the Undead was too busy riding his orgasm to register the pangs of pain sent by the other man's bites.  
The room was filled with the sound of their heavy breaths: the Undead tiredly leant his head against Lautrec's one, feeling the man's arms enveloping him in a warm embrace.

Lautrec tilted his head and started kissing him on his jaw, slowly making his way to his mouth: the Undead felt Lautrec's lips pressing against his own and quietly reciprocated his kisses, almost smiling at the thought that the thing that could make an undead feel alive again was as simple as finding someone to pleasure.

Lautrec broke their kiss and leant one more time his forehead against the Undead's, idly looking for his eyes.  
"That was good." He panted breathlessly. "...good indeed." The Undead agreed, a smile forming on his lips as he returned his gaze.  
He then lifted himself enough to turn around and sit beside Lautrec, sitting cross legged and leaning his head on his shoulder, looking at the distant stars out of the tiny window.  
"Feel free to break inside my house anytime you want." The other man chuckled and tilted his head to kiss him again, warming that little sprinkle of life that still resided in his long-dead body.


	5. Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah-ha! You really thought you were done with me?! You were fooled!  
> This issue features: cuddles. Some, cuddles.

The Undead had never slept better since he had hollowed: the warmness that was enveloping him was making him forget even about the coarseness of the bed sheets; he couldn't help but feel sadness when he felt his wake approaching, pulling him back towards his gloomy reality.  
As he lazily opened his eyes he heard the faint cries of the hollows coming from the outside, and sunrays filtering from the tiny window softly caressing his skin with their heat; he shuffled in the bed a little bit, forcing his body to wake up, when he felt a light breath caressing his neck, and something hard brushing against his backbone: he immediately stopped moving and took a deep breath out of habit, trying to recall the events of the previous evening;

He faintly remembered the fight and the wine, and the events that followed were even more blurred; yet, as he took a peek just above his shoulder he realized he hadn't imagined nor dreamt it: Lautrec was peacefully sleeping behind him, his body pressed against his back and his arm loosely wrapped around his waist; his morning boner kept brushing against the Undead’s ass, making him feel both nervous and horny.  
The Undead felt panic gripping his guts at the only thought of what could have happened now: Lautrec was drunk the previous night, there was no way he could have meant it; he saddened at the thought that even if he had been sober he wouldn't have probably wanted it.

He contemplated the idea of quietly escaping from the house, but the only thought of avoiding the knight for the rest of his life made something inside his chest shrink; he had understood it was not a simple crush, but something else entirely: something more, something stupid, something that he should have never allowed to happen in the first place; he sunk his face in the bedsheets, feeling a blush creeping up his cheeks at the only thought of how stupid his hopeless reverie of a life with the other man sounded, even to him; it was somehow encouraging him to go on, but at the same time he knew that Lautrec would have never been able to love him back: he was more likely to spit on his feelings if he were ever to discover them.

His train of thoughts was abruptly interrupted when he heard Lautrec humming deeply, slowly waking up: the Undead could almost feel his eyes pierce through the back of his skull, his breath tickling the back of his neck.  
"Are you awake?" Lautrec whispered deeply against his neck and the Undead, in his panic, remained silent and shut his eyes, the thought of letting Lautrec walk away from all of this and pretend it never happened in the first place becoming more and more appealing by the second.

The arm around his waist moved back, caressing his streamlined muscles with his fingertips and idly tracing the outline of his hipbone.  
The Undead felt his very being tense as Lautrec's hand stroked his thigh, his cock still pushing against the skin between his buttocks.  
His calloused hand traveled further downwards and then back towards his abs: he gulped as slyly as he could when he felt it roam towards his groin; Drake bit on his lower lip when it wrapped around his shaft, the thumb pressing lightly on it and making him ache for more: he knew he couldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t, but for fuck’s sake, the only thing he wanted to do right now was beg for more; when Lautrec started stroking him the Undead's hips tensed, but he managed to keep his eyes shut, until he heard a light chuckle coming from behind him, and the other man whispering in his ear again.

"You're such a terrible liar."

The Undead's eyes snapped open and his hand immediately reached for Lautrec's wrist, pulling it away from his now erected member.  
"What do you want?" he groaned without even turning back to look at him: if he had, he was probably going to jump on him. "To fuck you. What else?" the Undead pressed his lips together at that statement, not really understanding the other man’s intentions anymore, but at the same time he was too self-conscious to even think Lautrec might have been interested in him as well.  
Lautrec’s lips pressed against his shoulder, leaving kisses and bite-marks on his pale skin; the Undead was too overwhelmed by his own thoughts and barely managed to moan as Lautrec’s hand went back to work on his cock: he heaved himself on top of him and pulled at the Undead’s arm just enough to make him face him.  
Gods, he was beautiful. He had never thought he would have described another man as such, much less the one that had given him so many troubles… but there was something in the wantonly way he looked at him that stirred all the lust he had buried during the years at Fina’s service. He slowly lowered himself and tilted his head, feeling the Undead holding his breath as their lips got closer and closer, their noses brushing lightly as he demandingly pressed his mouth against the Undead’s, asking for entrance. Lautrec kept stroking the other man’s cock and soon Drake turned into a moaning mess, clinging to every part of his body he could reach, digging his fingers in Lautrec’s hair and pushing their mouths even closer.

Suddenly the hand on his cock shuffled towards his thigh and opened him a little, allowing Lautrec’s dick to brush against his entrance, which earned him a heated moan from the Undead: he broke the kiss, heavily panting, looking at him with such a lustful gaze he felt his own cock twitching. He quickly pushed him on his belly and spread his ass cheeks, aligning himself with him.  
When he understood Lautrec was going through with his words he tried to bite back, but it was too late.  
"Oh hell no, if someone is getting fucked it won’t be m-"  
The Undead couldn't finish the sentence that Lautrec had already forced himself inside him; he groaned underneath his weight, feeling him spread his asshole as he made his way inside of him. The man demandingly pushed inside of him, and the pain would have surely made him shed more than a couple of tears were he not so used to being hurt.

"Lautrec! Gentler!"  
The other man stopped, and he could feel him lowering and whispering into his ear. "Too big for you, Drake?" The Undead felt heat spreading all over his face at those few syllables.  
"Don't get too cocky. It's just..." as Lautrec pushed himself deeper inside he groaned again. "Damn. You _are_ big..." he murmured while burying his face in the pillow, suffocating the strangled moans and screams in the back of his throat.

"Shh... just relax..." The Undead pressed his lips together and bit his lower lip: his ass couldn't take him all in without some foreplay, and all he was feeling right now was pain. "I can wait a bit for you, but I don't have all day." Lautrec murmured, lightly caressing the Undead’s sides.  
The Undead took in a deep breath and forced himself to relax: first his shoulders, then his stomach and ass, fighting against the urge to stiffen every muscle anytime Lautrec moved.  
He felt Lautrec grab the back of his neck and shoving himself inside of him a little bit more, humming lightly.  
"Good boy." At that comment, he felt all his muscles go limp (except an important one that was on the contrary demanding for more attention) as Lautrec filled him up completely.  
He exhaled deeply when he heard the other man groan appreciatively.  
"You're so fucking tight..." he sighed. The Undead heaved his bosom a little as Lautrec slowly pulled out of him and back inside again, in an excruciatingly slowly pace.  
"L-lautrec..." he feebly murmured as he grabbed the by-now torn bedsheets between his hands, following the movements as best he could, a tiny tear tracing the contour of his nose as it fell down on the mattress.  
Thanks to Lautrec's skill and some of his precum, his butthole became slicker, thus making any movement much easier: he felt Lautrec's hands gripping at his hipbones, forcing him to meet his cock every time he pushed inside. The Undead slowly raised himself on his arms, remaining at the right height to let Lautrec fuck him.  
The pleasure was quickly overwhelming him and his breath became uneven: everything in his vision was blurring as Lautrec reached deeper and deeper inside of him with each movement.

Suddenly, the other man pulled out of him: before he could protest Lautrec had already pushed him on his back and placed himself between his legs; as he stared at him in disbelief the golden knight grabbed the back of his knees and pushed them up, making more room for himself and reaching for the Undead's entrance one more time.  
The Undead stared at his features as he pressed himself inside him once more: Lautrec groaned again and bit his lower lip, while the Undead closed his eyes and threw his head back as he felt his length filling him up again, his mind briefly wondering why he had turned him around if he just wanted to treat him like some kind of release; he restrained himself from thinking there was something more behind it: it was too soon to even think about something like that, but he couldn’t help but smile as he felt Lautrec caressing his sides, buried balls-deep inside of him.  
The Undead looked at him again and he smirked, before lowering himself to smack a kiss on his lips: this time he was being gentler than before, and the Undead couldn’t restrain himself from thinking that harsh move could really mean something more.  
He dragged his hands on Lautrec’s shoulders and pulled him down to kiss him each time he reached deeper inside of him.

He picked a quicker pace and the Undead snapped his head to the side, biting harder his lips to suppress the screams.  
"Stop holding back." He looked at the man on top of him, a lustful grin adorning his face. "I'd love to hear you beg for more."  
"Beg for more? Tch... I'm not- doing that." "Will you really make me stop to preserve your pride?" Lautrec slackened the pace and the Undead understood he wasn't joking.  
He groaned "Stop dawdling and fuck me like the wanton whore I am."  
Lautrec lifted his abdomen and quickened the pace, the new angle allowing him to fuck even deeper; the Undead needed to hold on to something and so he pressed his palms against the headboard, arching his back and moaning.  
As Lautrec kept fucking him, making the mattress squeak every time he pushed inside of the Undead, he couldn’t help but admire again how beautiful he looked when he finally let go of all the problems that were constantly burdening him; he couldn’t help but be pleased to be one of the few things that still made him forget who he was and what he had to do.

“Don’t… stop…” he whimpered breathlessly, digging his nails in the wooden headboard, thinking just about how long he had been dreaming about this and how good it was feeling, chasing away in the back of his throat that awkward ‘I love you’ that kept threatening to escape from his lips.  
He screamed his name as he felt his hot seed stuffing his ass and his own cum spurting from his cock and dripping down his abs, reaching his chest before stopping.  
They both looked for each other’s eyes as Lautrec reached down for him and their mouths met one last time in a soft, tender kiss.  
Lautrec pulled out of him and wound his arms around the other man’s shoulders, brushing their foreheads together and enjoying the fuzzy heat of their post-orgasmic haze.  
“’Exhausted’ looks good on you…” “I would have said ‘sated’, but yeah, that too…” he smirked, intertwining his fingers in-between Lautrec’s locks and kissing him lightly. Lautrec hummed deeply as he tilted his head and started leaving a trail of kisses on the Undead’s neck, while the other man just wound his arms around him and closed his eyes, enjoying the soft feeling of his lips against his skin.

His mind reminded him one last time not to say anything awkward while Lautrec heaved himself up and turned towards the end of the bed; he ripped a piece of the bed sheets and cleaned himself, enjoying the view of his breathless Undead laying before him.  
"What a mess you made..." he murmured as he gently wiped the Undead's buttocks, going upwards and cleaning the rest of his belly and chest. The Undead heaved himself on his arms and sat up, wetting his lips and giving him a heavy-lidded look.

“Did you like that, you wanton whore?" "Don’t… call me like that!" “You called yourself like this before.” He replied with a smirk “Well…I can.” Lautrec got closer to him, his lips ghosting on the Undead’s ones "Bet you like it…" He grasped the hilt of his cock. "…don’t you?" The Undead muffled a hum pressing his lips together. "...yes, I do." He bitterly admitted.  
The Undead slowly closed the gap between them and kissed him softly, savoring the moment: it was not a relationship, but all those tiny tender things had surely made his soul warm up a little bit. He could barely believe that was the same Lautrec that had backstabbed him not even so long ago.

Just as Lautrec was about to leave, Drake realized he wanted more: he sat up, grabbed his shoulder and turned Lautrec towards him, straddling his lap and reaching again for his mouth, kissing him with all the tenderness he had been holding back, too afraid of making him leave but unable to hold back; when he realized what he was doing it was too late, but then he felt Lautrec smirking in the kiss and then his calloused hand reached for the back of his head, pushing him towards him.

‘I love you.’ He clang again to his shoulders; shit, he had to stop this, but- ‘I love you so much it hurts.’ he kept thinking, forcing himself not to say it out loud.

He was no moody teenager, he had to stop this insane fixation, but it was far too hard for him. Lautrec rolled and pressed him on the mattress one more time, giving him an open-mouthed kiss before standing up and looking at him one last time, looking then around the room to fetch his clothes.  
Drake licked his lips and looked down, taking the opportunity to peek at the other man’s butt when he fetched his pants from the ground. He put them on and started redoing all the knots to keep them closed: the Undead never stopped looking at him.  
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Whoops. He had noticed. 

The Undead brushed a hand on the back of his neck, quite embarrassed to admit – part of – the truth but unable to lie to Lautrec right now.  
"I don't know, I... wasn't expecting you to stay... but I'm kinda feeling like a cheap slut here."  
Lautrec leant towards him, grabbed him from his chin and pressed his fingers at both sides of his face, forcing him to pout. "But you _are_ my cheap slut."  
He then smacked another kiss on his lips and let go of him, pacing out of the room to fetch his armor.

When the Undead heard the door slamming shut, he laid back on the bed and stared blankly at the crumbling ceiling.

"Fuck it, I'm taking a day off."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it that bad I want to write some Orbeck/M!AshenOne trash? (tell me it's bad. I can't afford to have another weird pairing right now)


	6. Lusty evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supplying the right amount of angst and sex since June 2016

The Duke’s Archives - once cleared - were one of the quietest and most peaceful places the Undead had ever set foot in: whenever he had a question not even Logan could answer, he was fond of delving inside the seemingly endless shelves to dig through the long forgotten knowledge; right now he was sitting in front of a table covered in tomes and scrolls, looking for a solution for a severe case of… well, that was pretty much the fact: he didn’t even know what Queelan actually had.  
He turned the page with a small puff, his excitement about finding a cure for the Fair Lady dissipating with each page that brought him exactly nowhere, not an inch closer to the answer since he had started. He yawned and stretched his arms, trying to remain focused, when a clinking sound coming from the corridor drew his attention.

“Studying ‘till late?” The Undead raised his head from the tome he had been reading for the past three hours to gaze at the golden knight strolling down the hallway. “Lautrec.” He greeted with a smirk, and frowned at him almost immediately after putting together the words ‘Lautrec’ and ‘library’ “What are you doing here?” the knight took a few steps towards him, slightly shrugging his armored shoulders. “I was just… passing by. Thought I might pay a visit.” The Undead chortled at him. “Please, I’m not _that_ stupid!” although still unable to see his face, he was pretty sure Lautrec was smirking too. “Let’s try this again: what are you doing here today?” the other man faked a distressed puff, pacing quietly towards the Undead as he spoke “I meant to… expand my knowledge, in a manner of speaking…”  
"You mean you are trying to steal from the Duke's archives?" Lautrec crossed his arms on his chest and turned his head away from the Undead, as if he had just been offended "'Steal' is such a strong word; I prefer 'Borrow' - for quite a long time and without any pledge to return what I take, but Borrow it is nonetheless." At that statement the Undead shook his head smiling and glanced again at the enormous book spread over the table before him; he saw in the corner of his eye Lautrec lowering his head and taking off his helm, his messed dark locks covering his face until he moved them back with his hand: he bit his lower lip, in an attempt to restrain himself from thinking about their previous encounter – and completely failing at it.

“You know where the good stuff is, by the way? I don’t have enough time to explore the Archives from top to bottom.” The Undead turned a page of the book and read something before being interrupted again- “Are you even listening to me?”  
“Mh? Oh, yeah sure. I’m just ignoring you.” He tried not to smirk as Lautrec rolled his eyes and sighed, dragging the Undead’s chair backwards and stepping between him and the book, leaning on the edge of the table “Hey! I was reading that!”  
“Uh, I hadn’t noticed.” he mocked while closing the book behind him and pushing it on the other side of the table. 

“Please, tell me you aren’t really thinking I climbed all the way up here just for a pile of paper, are you?” his armored glove reached for the Undead’s chin, pushing it upwards to force him to look into his eyes. “Maybe? I mean…” he frowned a little, looking at his side with a bashful look …“it’s been _weeks_ …” he murmured with a faint smile, trying to ignore the pained lust that had tormented him during those aforementioned interminable weeks.  
Lautrec exhaled deeply and lightly shook his head “Gods, don’t turn into a whiny girlfriend now that I have just started to bear you.” The Undead smirked again at Lautrec’s grumpy character, before standing up and softly pressing his lips against his, his hands roaming the other man’s body and tugging at the plates on his hips; it had been far too long since his tongue had explored the other’s mouth.  
He felt Lautrec’s nimble fingers undoing the knots of his blue vest and dragging it off his shoulders, making it fall on the ground to join the rest of the armor the Undead had already taken off before starting to read that evening.  
He then demandingly grabbed the lower rim of his chainmail and lifted it above his head, letting it join the other articles of clothing on the ground and assaulting his now exposed clavicles with tongue and teeth. 

The Undead wound his arms around Lautrec’s body and pressed their chests closer, tilting his head upwards to let him kiss his throat. He pushed the Undead against the table, his hands traveling down his sides and squeezing his hips. 

Lautrec swept the pile of books sitting on top of the table away and slammed the Undead on the flat wooden surface, a thick cloud of dust raising from the ancient papers as they hit the ground. “Damn it, Lautey! You know how old this stuff is?!” the other man nibbled at his neck and his voice broke mid-sentence when he found the right spot, the one sending shivers down his spine. He instinctively wrapped his legs around the other man’s sides and cupped his face, kissing his lips one more time.  
He broke the kiss when he felt again his cold gloved hands touching his stomach, following the shape of his abs and groping towards his hipbones, brushing his crotch against the Undead’s ass before clutching at his thin shirt and ripping it open.  
As Lautrec kissed his way down the Undead’s body, he mischievously looked up at him and took the chance to push a lucky book that had miraculously been spared from his previous sweep beyond the edge of the table: Drake’s attempt to grab it proved useless as it fell down and joined the pile of ancient books and scrolls – many more alike to ash now after Lautrec’s treatment – on the floor. 

“Logan will surely kill me this time.” He muttered as he felt Lautrec’s lips leaving a trail of kisses down his stomach: when he arrived at the height of his navel the Undead unconsciously held his breath and then moaned when the other man palmed his erection through his pants. “Lautrec… please…” the golden knight straightened back up and smirked when he saw how needy the Undead looked. “I thought it would have taken more time for you to beg me.” He murmured as he raised one of the Undead’s legs and started undoing all the knots keeping his boots closed. He then threw it behind his shoulder and did the same with the other one.  
Lautrec undid his pants as well, but then gestured him to sit up, to which the Undead complied eagerly: this kiss was deeper and felt more real than anything the Undead had been through in the past days. He breathlessly moaned when Lautrec pulled his length free, and almost squealed when the golden knight pushed him back on the table and yanked away his pants: the knight looked at him with a lopsided grin.  
“What? It’s cold in here!”  
Of course he was lying: he was feeling so hot he feared he might have started to melt any moment now. 

He felt Lautrec’s hands caressing his thighs and traveling up towards his stomach, making his skin prickle wherever they touched; one hand lingered on his chest while the other one squeezed Drake’s inner thigh, the coldness of the metal against his skin sending a funny feeling down his spine.  
His hands traveled back towards his rear and lingered on his asshole, one digit temptingly pushing against the muscle ring at his entrance; the pressure increased until he felt it passing through and slowly pumping inside of him.  
Lautrec’s name escaped the Undead’s lips, making a smile appear on his face. “I know you can take more, you whore.” He was knuckle-deep inside him, and when he pulled back he added a second finger to it. “Ah- Lautrec…” the Undead gulped in anticipation; he was panting: those fingers were reaching closer and closer to that sweet spot, and his eyes almost rolled back inside his skull when Lautrec bent them inside of him.  
He reached for the man’s wrist and stopped him, slowly sitting up: when he was face to face with him again, he pulled him out of himself with a sigh. 

“I just need-“ the Undead licked his lips and raised his gaze to meet Lautrec’s one: he was panting and heavy-lidded, longing to have Lautrec’s prick shoved inside the back of his throat. His palms pressed against the flat of the other man’s chest, followed by his gaze. “I just want to take off the important bits.”  
His hands, though trembling in excitement, did a quick job at disposing of the lower parts of the golden knight’s armor: when they clanked to the ground Lautrec took a step back to allow the Undead to get off the table, but he grabbed the golden arms wound around his chest and pulled him closer again. There was fire in his eyes.  
“I’m not finished yet.”  
Drake moved his hands underneath and around Lautrec’s arms, finding the belts keeping his chest plate together and yanking them open one by one, with a fain pleasured expression Lautrec had seen in rare occasions.  
When it finally clunked open the Undead helped the knight out of it and tossed the piece of armor towards the pile of ruined unreplaceable books with a grimace on his pleasured face.  
Lautrec lowered his gaze and kept grazing the back of his fingers against the Undead’s hips, softly caressing him with a smile plastered on his face. 

The Undead kept staring at him for a couple of seconds before speaking.  
“What?” Lautrec looked at him again, with that ‘I was so right about you’ smirk. “Jealous?” The Undead put his hands around his neck and pulled him closer to his body. “Of that bitch? Yes.”  
He kissed him fiercely, his swollen lips pressed tightly against his ones and his tongue grazing the roof of his mouth possessively, breaking the kiss with almost as much rage and passion as when he had started it. He left a trail of small sloppy kisses down his jaw and throat, nuzzling his nose and forehead against the other’s neck. “You’re not hers anymore.” Damn, how he wanted to leave a hickey right there, to show who he belonged to now… but he could just stay still, ghosting his lips on his beloved’s skin, for doing anything more than that would have surely driven him away. 

‘You’re mine. _Just_ mine.’ 

Drake closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, fighting those words back to where they came from; he let Lautrec grab his throat and pull him up in a standing position: he looked at him with a smug face and slowly licked his lips, his cock twitching at the only thought of what he was going to do to him. The Undead grasped Lautrec’s wrist. “Are we getting started then?”  
He smirked as he kissed him again, pushing him backwards towards a library: he quickly undid Lautrec’s pants and dropped to his knees, licking the foreskin before pushing it back and taking the head of his cock in his mouth. 

He quickly took him in and then sucked back with his eyes shut, opening them just to look up at Lautrec when he stopped with the head on the tip of his tongue. He looked down heavy-lidded at him, pushing him back to work.  
“Who told you to stop?!”  
Lautrec kept his hand on the back of the Undead’s head, making sure he kept the pace, sometimes shoving his dick too deep and too fast inside the Undead’s throat and causing his gag reflex to kick in and make him choke on it – something Lautrec soon discovered he _loved_ doing; 

The Undead grabbed Lautrec’s thighs: he needed something to hold on to as he kept shallowly bucking his hips towards his mouth, some tears caused by the gagging still dropping down his cheekbones.  
Suddenly Lautrec grabbed his hair tighter and shoved his cock deep inside, cumming in the back of his throat: he milked him, swallowing every droplet of his seed in that little mouth of his until he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled out coughing sperm, a little quantity of it dropping down his chin and some had even ended up in his nose. 

He felt sated for a couple of seconds, until his own erection started protesting: he bit his lower lip and gave it a couple of strokes, restraining himself from the urge of jerking off. He felt a cold, gloved hand caressing the top of his head, then grabbing his short blue hair and pulling him in a standing position.  
He let Lautrec push him against the shelves he had been leaning on mere seconds before: the knight crashed his mouth against his, undoubtedly tasting himself on his lips. 

One of his gloved hands traveled down his stomach and grabbed his shaft, the coldness of the metal against his sensitive skin giving him goosebumps and making something heat inside of his belly.  
“What are you-?” he dumbly asked, still too overwhelmed by the fellatio.  
“Who did you take me for? I’m not sucking your dick, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I ain’t leaving you halfway.” 

As Lautrec kept stroking him he hummed and moaned, groaning from time to time at the rudeness he put into it; he glanced at the knight's cock, which had become rock-hard and kept lightly wobbling with every movement Lautrec made.  
He suddenly stopped stroking him and resumed kissing him, grabbing his ass with his hands and lifting him against the shelves. “Give me a hand, you dumb fuck.” The Undead did just as he said and aligned Lautrec’s shaft with his entrance, using his other arm to cling on the man’s shoulders.  
“And here I was, thinking you were too old for a two-in-a-row.” “You fucking little shit-“ he replied, slamming his full length inside of the Undead and eliciting a loud, deep moan from the man.  
“I’ll never be too old to fuck your tight arse raw.” 

The sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the halls and the Undead shyly smirked as he grabbed the edge of an upper shelf behind him and used it to lever himself better on Lautrec’s dick.  
“You’re… so tight…” Lautrec murmured, pressing his forehead against the Undead’s naked chest and using his hands to spread his ass-cheeks further apart as he kept pumping into him. 

“D-deeper” the Undead managed to moan, brushing away the drool smearing the side of his face. “I want deeper.”  
With a wicked grin, Lautrec turned around and dropped the Undead back on the table, lifting his ankles on his shoulders and slamming his cock harder into him. His gloved fingers kept digging in the Undead’s sides, leaving bruises on his pale skin. The new angle allowed Lautrec to brush against Drake’s prostate, making him squirm and wriggle after each stroke.  
With a scream, the Undead spurted his seed on his own belly: he tried to follow Lautrec rhythm, but found it hard to do so since the orgasm had drained him of his energies, leaving him tired and sated.  
“You’ve had enough, bitch?” the Undead smirked with his eyes shut. “Give me 10-15 minutes and I’ll show you how wrong you are…” he murmured while cracking one eye open to look at him. He shallowly moved his hips, following Lautrec’s movements “I like how your big stupid cock feels inside of me… it fills me so well. But I bet you could do even better.”  
Lautrec grinned at his statement and pinned the Undead’s arms above his head, plunging even deeper inside of him: all that heat was the last thing he needed to topple over the edge. As he grunted and panted above him, the Undead distinctly heard the noise of steps approaching. 

“Drakëdous? I heard screams. Are you alr-“ The Undead had barely the time to widen his eyes before Big Hat Logan entered the hallway he was currently fucking in. 

The old man emitted a shriek and dropped a couple of the tomes he was carrying.  
"I'm so sorry Logan!" the Undead shouted as he saw Logan's big hat striding away with the corner of his eye. "He wasn't supposed to be here..." he murmured while grimacing and closing his eyes, dropping his head back and thumping it against the table’s surface while his hips kept bucking to let Lautrec ride the last of his orgasm.  
“He’ll cope with it...” Lautrec murmured heavy-lidded and with a huge grin on his face, pulling out of the Undead – who wantonly moaned in return. “…eventually.” 

The Undead faintly attempted to sit up, failing badly at it. After Lautrec stuffed his softening dick back in his trousers he smirked at the pitiful Undead laying before him and helped him up “Hey. You don’t look alright.” He chuckled, pulling the Undead closer. “Maybe a little boneless, but I’ll manage.” He smirked as well and leant towards him until their mouths met again, his tongue softly slipping past his lips and gently stroking inside of it.  
When they broke the kiss, the Undead leant his forehead against Lautrec’s and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply the musky scent of sex of their aftermath.  
Lautrec caressed his thigh and stepped away from him, fetching the parts of his armor the Undead had taken off and slowly putting them back on. 

As Drake watched him the usual melancholy chagrin made way among his thoughts, hurting more than he would have wanted it to. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go look for something to snatch out of this place.” The golden knight said while putting his helmet back on.  
“Why don’t you ask someone to show you the way around?” the Undead sarcastically mumbled while standing up and fetching his trousers from the ground. Lautrec sighed “The only one who knows it is my fuck-buddy, but he’d never willingly show me anything but his cock...” 

‘Oh. Sure. I almost forgot we are… just… _that.’_

Drake put back on his trousers, facing away from Lautrec. “See you around, loser.” He slapped Drake’s butt and started making his way upwards, towards the higher floors of the Archives. After a while the Undead couldn’t even distinguish him from the rest of the staircase. 

He sat down. He _needed_ to sit down: that faint pain in his chest had come back again, stronger; if he didn’t start consuming humanities soon enough, he would have surely gone Hollow.  
“Well… shit.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, my Undead has a ridiculous, beautiful full name.


	7. Probably a pun with Demon's Ruins hotness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naay, I don’t think Lautrec would ever willingly suck someone else’s dick. But this was fun to write :B  
> Also, Happy Holidays.

The Undead took another deep breath: the umpteenth battle won, Solaire at his side, his own armor trying to melt him. Yes, it was going to be a glorious day!  
The sunny fellow decided to scout the area by himself while the Chosen told him he would have tried to catch his breath for a moment: he opened the lid of his helmet and generously drank from his estus flask, noting how everything felt even hotter outside of his helm. He quickly closed it again and decided to wait for Solaire to come back, least they lost each other in this damned place.  
Suddenly his eyes caught a glimpse on the ground: when he approached, the unreal image of a well known phantom appeared before him.  
Drake temptingly touched the summon sign and sat on a ruined fallen column nearby, watching the beams of light raising and curving, shaping his beloved Carim knight: his armor glistened in the incandescent atmosphere of Lost Izalith, his golden helmet hanging from his belt.

“My, the Favor knight heeded my call and didn’t even try to stab me... yet. Well, I’m impressed.” Lautrec crossed his arms on his chest. “Stop giving me that dove-eyes look. I hadn’t anything better to do anyway.” The Undead lightly snorted, smirking underneath his helm.  
The two of them kept gazing at each other, waiting to see who would have been the first one to move. “Oh, not welcoming daddy home, are you?” the golden knight noted sarcastically; Drake just shrugged. “Please, stop reminding me how old you are.”  
Since he wasn’t moving, Lautrec rolled his eyes and strode towards him “Damn, you’re lucky I like it when you’re being bitchy.” He yanked Drake’s helmet open and grabbed the back of his head, kissing him deeply.

“How aren’t you boiling into this thing?” Drake snickered at that statement. “I know you’d like to strip me, but there’s still a great soul carrier we have to face before that.” Lautrec took a deep breath, drops of sweat beading his forehead mere seconds after he stepped into Demon’s Ruins.  
“You don’t mind if I face naked this- what was it already?” Drake slightly widened his eyes: it was… tricky to tell what the Witch of Izalith had become.  
“I don’t… really know how to describe it.”  
“Haven’t you and Solaire already faced it yet?”  
“Yes. And I still don’t know how to describe it.” Lautrec exhaled deeply. “Try, will you?”  
The Undead confusedly scratched his head, trying to find a point from which he could start. “Well, the Archives’ tomes described it as ‘the bed of chaos’…” Lautrec pressed his lips together in a thin line and grimaced “…you don’t mind if I tell you I’ve heard enough, do you?”

“Chosen! I believe I found a safe path towards the old witch.” His sunny fellow stepped near what should have been the threshold of the ruined ceiling-less tower they were in: his tone changed immediately after spotting Lautrec.  
“Oh. You again.”  
Drake didn’t know if Lautrec did it because he was glad to see him or annoyed by Solaire, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like it when he wound his arm possessively around his waist and pulled him closer to his body.  
“Is something the matter? Weren’t you the ‘jolly cooperation’ type?” “Not when you’re my company.” Sensing a thunderstorm coming between the two, Drake stepped between them and grabbed their shoulders “Hey, guys! We’re clearly not in a shortage of man-work. Keep it down, please?”  
“The more, the merrier.” Lautrec snickered and Solaire let the argument drop: there was no point in discussing who was helping who, and he just didn’t feel like refusing another pair of hands.

Solaire puffed heavily inside his helm. “Let’s just go.”  
He started walking again, and the Undead followed him while worriedly glancing at Lautrec. “What’s wrong with him?” the golden knight murmured.  
“I don’t know. I think he just realized how hopeless our quest is. How it has always been. Can’t blame him, really.” Lautrec reached for the Undead’s hand and squeezed it. “Don’t hollow.” He mumbled, his eyes drifting towards the endless lava covering Demon’s Ruins.

Drake almost found it funny that the major reason he was hollowing faster than usual was Lautrec himself.  
Almost.

\---

The Bed of Chaos had taken them quite some time: although both Solaire and Drake had already weakened it during the past hours, the final blow was really difficult to land.  
The three of them gathered around the bonfire behind the illusory wall, sharing estus and humanities alike.  
The conversation had been icier than usual, and just now the Undead realized how greatly he missed the old cheery Solaire. Suddenly, the knight stood up, fetching his belongings from the ground.

“Are you parting already?” Solaire silently nodded and fastened his Astora sword to his belt. “The path is long, and I’d rather take it slowly.” Drake stood up and handed Solaire his shield. “And I bet you wouldn’t like the company.” He murmured with a tiny smile.  
“Don’t blame it on me, my friend: that Carim fellow is solely following you.”  
He chuckled lightly, and for a moment Drake saw again a sprinkle of that kind-hearted knight that had helped him so long ago. “I’ll be meeting you at the Shrine: we still have a duty to fulfill; try not to waste too much time with that felon.”  
“Stay safe, my friend.” Drake smiled and patted Solaire’s shoulder before looking at him quietly walking away.

He sat down, a little more worried and relieved at the same time. “It was about time!” before he could even look at him Lautrec had already pushed him under his weight and started kissing him.  
Drake rolled on top of him, his hands already roaming the knight’s chest and undoing the by now well known straps and belts. “You overheard us, didn’t you?” Lautrec snorted at the question “Pfft, it’s not something he hasn’t already said in my face.”  
As the Undead kept removing layers of armor and clothes Lautrec’s hands roamed his thighs, caressing and squeezing them and shuffling his palms towards the Undead’s ass, groping his ass cheeks and pressing his large hands against the thick layers of clothing and chainmail.

“I… wanted to…” Lautrec gave him a bashful look. The Undead involuntarily worried about it. “Try something new.” The Undead scanned his face one more time, but he still had no idea where he was going with this.  
“A-alright; as long as it doesn’t involve cutting or burning me, I guess I’m fairly in.” “Stop giving me new ideas and drop that stupid worried look from your face! I’m not going to eat you!” Lautrec looked at his side for a moment, pressing his lips together “Or… well, that’s actually what I wanted to do, though I could have found a better way to formulate it…” he awkwardly cleared his throat.  
The Undead widened his eyes: suddenly, a whole new different wave of heat spread on his cheeks and chest. Lautrec unceremoniously pushed him underneath him and smacked a kiss on his neck, steadily undressing him and making his way down his torso. “Just tell me what I have to do, would you?”  
“Oh! Damn, it’s not that difficult, really!” Lautrec disapprovingly grunted as he placed another kiss on his stomach.  
“Yeah, I lick your cock and suck it. I know the basics. But I bet you sucked enough dicks to be able to give me some tips.”

He quickly unclasped his pants and pulled out his stiff hard cock, licking it along the shaft.  
Damn, he had to give him kudos for his enthusiasm.  
The Undead felt it slide past Lautrec’s lips: he clenched his teeth together and immediately grabbed Lautrec’s hair, stopping him “Ah-alright, first lesson! Less-- teeth, please!” Lautrec gave him an annoyed glance before opening his jaw wider and taking him back inside his mouth. He vaguely knew how to do that, but he was doing pretty good for being his first time; as he took him inch by inch, plentiful moans escaped from his mouth, more resembling Lautrec’s name the more he swallowed.  
Drake dragged his hand across his face, attempting to remain lucid enough to fully enjoy this. “Now suck back up-” Lautrec complied and the Undead’s eyes almost rolled back inside his skull, his hand finding the back of Lautrec’s head and slightly combing his hair as he helped him set up a pace. “That’s- pretty it. You’ve got it.” He felt the man hum around his cock and he bit his palm as hard as he could to try and maintain control, although the idea of bucking his hips in that wet mouth of his was becoming more appealing by the second.

He had picked up a pace, and Drake couldn’t help but squirm and arch his back every time the knight’s lips reached his hilt: he sucked sometimes more, sometimes less, grazed his teeth along his shaft from time to time, registering every reaction his body had; he had to admit he was pretty good at understanding what people liked – guess all those years refining his silver tongue had to bring him somewhere after all.  
He slackened the pace and licked one last time along his shaft “Are you ready to move on?” he murmured in a husky voice, and all Drake could do was stutter an incoherent response as he tried to recall how to breathe.  
“You’re a natural talent.” he wheezed: Lautrec glared at him “Are you saying I’m a cocksucker?” he asked while brushing his mouth clean with the back of his hand.  
“Well…” he tried to keep breathing, the tension that had built up inside his stomach slowly fading “in the good way.” He sighed, opening his eyes slowly and trying to focus on the other man.

The Undead pushed himself in a sitting position, Lautrec removing the last articles of clothing he still had on before straddling his lap: Drake cocked an eyebrow and stared at him, his arms loosely hugging him. “Why are you giving me that look?” he turned his gaze from Lautrec’s, but ended up inevitably staring at his body. “I…” he cleared his throat “I hadn’t understood that by ‘something new’ you meant you wanted the whole thing.” He avoided his gaze again and Lautrec chuckled as he saw a deep dark blush spreading on his face.  
Drake stuttered a little more before managing to form a coherent sentence “Are you sure about this?”  
Lautrec raised his eyebrows “You… don’t want? Thought you might have liked a change…” “It’s not my problem, it’s more about-…” the Undead stopped, realizing talking about Lautrec’s past sex life was turning out to be more awkward than it should have been.  
“Is this your first time… getting…” “fucked?” Drake felt his face ablaze, and again not because of Lost Izalith “Metaphorically speaking no; but yes, you would be the first one to ride me.”

There was a panicked chuckle somewhere in the back of his throat, before he finally mustered enough courage to look back into the golden knight’s eyes.  
“Alright.” He tried to push Lautrec underneath him, but the knight grabbed his hand and pushed back.  
“No way. You’re just not going to stay on top of me.” he exhaled deeply: he hadn’t even considered Lautrec’s jerkiness in all this.  
This… this was going to be tough.

“Fine then.” He sighed, palms raised in defeat. “Will you just let me help?” Lautrec puffed and gave him a look that said ‘move on’.  
“I need to- stretch you. It could be painful if you just jumped on me.”  
Drake took his pointer and middle finger inside his mouth and coated them with spit.  
“Yeah, just shut up and get on with it.”

He placed his hand at Lautrec’s bottom, his forefinger temptingly pushing against the muscle ring before slipping past it as gently as he could.  
Lautrec sighed through gritted teeth, avoiding Drake’s eyes on purpose, his fingers faintly digging in the other man’s shoulder blades.  
“You okay?” Lautrec wrinkled his nose. “Just get it done.”  
Drake murmured his name, but when he didn’t reply he placed his free hand on the back of Lautrec’s neck, his mouth softly placing a kiss on his lips as he pushed a little bit deeper, swallowing his moan.

When he pulled out he gasped - his pitch black eyes meeting Drake’s amber ones for a split second – before he resumed their kiss and pushed his rear against Drake’s hand, demanding for more.  
Drake kept pumping inside of him: by the time he had managed to stick three fingers inside of Lautrec, he was practically melting in his arms.  
The knight’s hand wrapped around his cock – Drake broke the kiss and licked his lips as Lautrec gave him a satisfied smirk. He squeezed a little on his shaft before pumping his hard cock a couple of times; he felt it throbbing in his hand, slick with precum and saliva. His other hand pushed on Drake’s well toned chest and he slid his fingers out of Lautrec as he allowed him to pin him to the ground.  
The golden knight levered himself on top of him, a hand grasping the base of his cock before he pushed it inside him.

“Ah- Lautrec!!” his ass clenched around his so perfectly he almost felt like passing out. “I-“ the incoherent words he was going to mutter were interrupted by a deep grunt, as he pulled out and pressed on his cock again, a frown still on his face.  
“I-if you d-don’t feel like it-“ “Chosen.” He cut him off, his dark eyes finding his again. “I’m feelin’ great.”  
He smiled - in what Drake would have described as an almost tender way: he blamed it on the temporary impaired blood flow and let his head rest on the ground, his hips following Lautrec’s movements as he kept fucking him, his hands resting on the man’s thighs.

He felt the golden knight leaning above him, a rough kiss on his mouth as he caught the Undead’s lower lip between his teeth, pulling at it gently. “I like how your big stupid cock feels inside of me.” Dirty talking? Damn, if nosebleed were his thing, he would have probably been bleeding to death.  
“I want you to reach deeper- fuck me deeper-“ Another sloppy kiss before he pushed himself above him and quickened the pace again. “I want you to tell me when you’re going to cum, moan my name and _fuck me harder._ ” If possible, Drake felt even hotter than the air around them, his pace picking up like crazy after those few sentences, his fingers digging in the man’s hips and leaving marks.

He thrusted just at the right angle and hit that spot that knew could send lightning down someone’s spine: the blissful look on Lautrec’s face spoke for itself.  
“More.” He moaned, and the Undead had never felt happier to oblige.  
He was pushing the knight quickly towards that beautiful edge, but he wasn’t that far behind: his thrusts were becoming sloppier, his breathing quickened.  
The tension inside his stomach was building up again “Gods- I’m going to cum-“ Lautrec grazed his shoulder and motioned him to sit, his mouth finding his again, placing a small kiss and grunting softly “Me too.”  
“You sure- you want me-“ Drake couldn’t finish his sentence he had already spent himself inside of him, grunting his name as he felt Lautrec’s cum squirting against his abs.

His mouth found Lautrec’s: he didn’t know for how long that kiss lasted, but it felt like forever with him still panting in his arms.  
He let go of him and let his body lay on the ground, both of them laughing at an untold joke only they seemed to know.  
The golden knight collapsed on top of him as well, breathlessly chuckling.  
_You are my treasure – the most precious thing in my life._

Drake looked at him heavy-lidded, his hand reaching for the back of his head and combing his locks with his fingers.  
He knew this was going to be the death of him.

_I don’t even want to think about what life would be like without you._

“Dammit.” He muttered undertone, Lautrec gave him one of his stupid grins as he pulled him out of himself, laying then on top of him, Drake’s chin resting on top of his head.  
“That… wasn’t half bad.” He mumbled breathlessly. “Although I absolutely prefer how you feel around me.”  
The Undead smirked, another chuckle vibrating in his chest. “Just tell me when you’re ready to start over then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had never realized how many sex scenes I needed to get out of my system; next time there will be less.  
> I think.


	8. Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *finger guns*

A sunny day – as usual, since the weather never changed in Lordran - Firelink Shrine in the background – that place almost started feeling like a safe haven to him too - and the Chosen Undead in his arms.  
Not a bad day, but tranquility never really appealed to him. He wanted to see if he could get things a little more… interesting.

“Care to pay for a useful tip?” the Undead’s eyebrows crooked at that question.   
“Can’t you just tell me?” Lautrec simply smirked, and the Undead rolled his eyes.  
“Are you serious?” the Undead closed the short gap between them and pressed his body against Lautrec’s, wrapping his arms around him and seductively biting his lower lip “Could you tell me…” he left a short, rough kiss on his mouth, almost biting him “…please?”  
It wasn’t the toll he was expecting, but he knew that if he told him there would have been more to come. After the Undead would have stopped being angry at him. Or even in between, if he was lucky.

He smiled contented “The lady... Maiden Thorolund. She became stranded deep below the Catacombs. Her followers either fled, or were reduced to Hollows…. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was already dying.”  
He was about to comment on how all that humanity was going to go to waste, but Drake had already pushed himself away from him and fetched his halberd and shield – plus some articles of clothing – from the ground. “By the Gods- _why didn’t you tell me sooner?_ ” Lautrec chuckled as Drake panicked trying to wake Solaire from his nap.

He accusatorily pointed his index toward the golden knight as he strode towards the Catacombs’ road “We’re dealing with this when I come back!” He shouted as he ran away.

Angry sex on his way. Couldn’t wait for it.

He silently watched as the two of them disappeared towards the cemetery cliffs. He fetched his shotel and dagger as well and stealthily sneaked behind them: he was mainly doing it because he didn’t want to clear the area himself, but he had to admit that watching the Chosen Undead dash towards necromancers and hordes of skeletons was… fascinating. Appealing. And made him question since when bloodsheds turned him at half-mast.

Always following close by, the idea of revealing himself when the two of them met Patches crossed his mind. But he knew Drake, and he hoped to see some fireworks between the three of them.  
His hopes shattered when Patches threw the both of them off a cliff (he quietly face-palmed in the shadows, that trick too old and stupid even for Solaire – yet they had fallen for it. I swear, kids these days-)  
He heard the swords clanking, the idea of showing up to help now turning to ‘slit Patches’ throat and just throw his corpse somewhere’, but he was glad he waited when Drake stormed back upstairs, Lady Thorolund right beside him.

Patches was trying to back off and make himself little, but Drake easily knocked him to the ground with a punch and grabbed one of his ankles, dragging the little man towards the edge of the cliff and lifting him beyond the edge – a little part of Lautrec’s mind aroused by how many muscles the Undead had put on since he had found that stone armor in one of the secret chambers of Anor Londo. He could hear what they were saying, but he could tell Patches had started speaking again, more urgently this time as he was swinging above the void: to Lautrec’s surprise, that jackal had his life spared one more time; Drake threw him back on the ground and he landed with a puff of dust on the safe rocky terrain and started making his way towards the exit.  
Lautrec silently complained when suddenly the Undead cast a miracle and a lightning landed inches from Patches’ feet, sending the bald man running out of the place.  
Gods, the Chosen was growing soft, he puffed.  
Solaire, Drake and Maiden Thorolund took a while to explore the catacombs, and when they reached the bonfire they sent the priest back to Firelink: the two knight then sat down near the fire. They still needed to find a way towards Nito after all: they could have tried to reach deeper within the place before retreating to Firelink for the night.  
They kept chatting for a while before silence settled between the two.

“If I may ask you something…” Solaire mumbled tentatively “What is going on between you and the Carim knight?”  
He wasn’t really looking for gossip today, but that was a question that he didn’t dare to ask, and to be honest feared the answer too, whatever that was.

“He- he means a lot to me.” His face looked bright red: Lautrec couldn’t tell if it was the effect of being near a bonfire or a blush, but he bet on the latter.  
“I know it’s stupid, but…” he stopped, bit his lower lip: if Lautrec could still feel blame for something it probably would have been this. “He makes me so happy. I’d be lost without him.” Before Solaire could reply, he was speaking again “I know, I know… he practically backstabs people for a living, but…”  
Gods, he means it. Lautrec silently thuds his helmet against the rocky wall he was hiding behind. “Do you love him?” he overheard Solaire asking, and he leant out of the cover to look at Drake’s reaction..  
The Undead remained silent, but Lautrec could see he was faintly nodding. “This is going to sound cheesy, but… he is my everything.”  
Drake pressed a hand against his chest, biting his lower lip “It hurts when he behaves like… well, like him. But, every time…” he smiles, almost lovingly “I can’t wait to meet him again.”

He had much to think as he paced back to the Parish. He found the body of Rhea slaughtered there, but since it was still carrying the humanities he didn’t really pay much attention to whom her assassin could have been and lightened her body of that burden.

It’s not like he hadn’t noticed, how the Undead had started consuming more and more humanities. If Lautrec wasn’t the one not wanting to confront the argument he would have felt offended the Chosen thought so little of him.

By the time Drake walked in the parish to settle scores with him everything was pristine again, and he was glad the Undead didn’t ask him about the priest – to be honest, his mouth was very busy doing something else entirely.  
Lords, he loved the feeling of his ass squeezing around his shaft, as he fucked him against one of the walls of the parish with most of his armor still on. Oh, and when he pushed him on the ground, setting up his pace, swallowing his every moan…

The thought of postponing what he wanted to do occurred to him plenty of times, but he knew it was for the best. Maybe for the both of them.  
He left one last soft kiss on his lips as he stood up, stuffing his softening dick back inside his pants and putting the armor back on, the Undead doing the same.

“Alright, now explain me why _here_ , of all places.” Lautrec smirked at him “I guess it reminds me of the first time we met – that day, so long ago, you made such a gigantic mistake and _freed_ me!” “Stop reminding me please.” He mumbled as he paced on a thick carpet Lautrec had snatched somewhere.  
“Is this… Gwynevere’s?” Drake asked as Lautrec sat on one of the benches in the front row.  
“Don’t give me that look, I just-“ “Borrowed it?”  
the golden knight stared at him and blinked a couple of times “If you already knew, why’d you ask?”

The Undead smirked and sat on the golden knight’s lap, his arms loosely wound around his shoulders.  
He tilted his head and kissed him deeply, a delicious moan muffled by his mouth. They stopped just for a second, the time Drake needed to straddle him, Lautrec’s arms winding tighter around his waist. It felt so good, so _right_ , to have him sitting on top of him, cuddling softly in their post-orgasmic haze.

He somehow wished this could last forever. No more fighting, no more deceiving, just the two of them profaning the church over and over again. But in the end, they were just meaningless ‘what ifs’. He knew he would have been alone again, at some point. It wasn’t the first time he had thrown everything he knew behind his back and moved on, but it didn’t hurt less every time it happened.  
In a perfect world, maybe they could have been two weird farmers living at the edge of a forest or some crap like that. But they were knights. They were undead. And most importantly, he had to consider one last thing…

 _He makes me so happy… he’s everything to me._

Lautrec opened his eyes: he had to deal with that first. He couldn’t live in a world without the Flame, the Darkness would have surely swept him away, along with all the rest of the undead.  
Drake would have died, one way or another, and the Chosen just couldn’t hollow because of him, not before sacrificing himself to the first flame. If he confronted the situation now there was a slight chance Drake would have made it to the Kiln without vanishing first.  
He broke the kiss, inhaling sharply “You’re in love with me.” He stated firmly, knowing it to be the truth. “What? No!” the golden knight rolled his eyes. “You’re such an amateur liar.”

The Undead froze: Lautrec kept staring at him, and he had no idea how to get out of this situation. “How do you know…?” the Undead felt heat spreading on his cheeks: no matter how hard he tried to lie himself out of this, he just couldn’t, not on this one.  
“From the way your smile lightens up when you see me, or how you chuckle as you cuddle next to me after sex?” the hand still lingering on Lautrec’s shoulder leaves him as Drake straightens back up. “How you look at me when you think I’m not watching? The dumb glint in your eyes when I’m around? I can go on if you want.” The Undead had understood there was something more to this. He sat beside Lautrec on the bench, lowering his gaze, his blue eyelashes caressing his cheeks.

“Well, what if I do?” Lautrec snorted at that question: he wouldn’t have cared about it so much if Drake was fine. But he wasn’t, and not admitting it was making everything even more difficult.  
“You’re hollowing rather quickly, aren’t you?”  
“It’s just a coincidence.” He minimized. “No, it is not.” He made sure there was no worry in his voice as he spoke, though an angered note must have slipped. “I-it won’t happen again, I promise.” Drake was almost about to plead him, but the golden knight kept staring down. “No, it won’t…” he sighed.

“What do you-?” the Undead’s eyes slowly widened in realization. “No. You- you can’t!” “This will just get worse. Look at yourself now: you can barely survive a night with me without half a dozen humanities at hand!”   
“I- Lautrec-“ the Undead couldn’t stop the sob escaping from his throat. He grabbed the Undead’s shoulder, forcing him to look in his eyes. “This is better for the both of us. The more we wait, the more quickly this will hollow you.” He calmly replied, even though he was boiling inside: saying how things were out loud would have been too complicated. Too much unlike him. He stood up and started making his way out of the Parish, but he heard the other knight standing up and grabbing his shoulder.  
“Can we talk about it?!” the golden knight snapped around to face the Undead once and for all, pushing his arm away from him. “No, we can’t!” He could read on Drake’s face his silent plead to know why. How could he tell him he cared more than he let on? How could he say that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone sentenced to death?  
“Look, I can’t love you, I’ll _never_ love you back, and I’m sick of you wasting your time with this reverie of yours! You have a world to save, and I have wasted enough time with you!” there’s hurt in his eyes. _Good. It will help him go on._ he tells himself, almost hoping for the Undead to loathe him if it meant he could still fulfill the prophecy.  
”There’s no way we would ever have a normal life together _even if I wanted it_ \- which I don’t. You’re destined to burn into that flame and I… I need to go on. Now drop this here and stop thinking about it.”  
Drake was staggered by his speech and Lautrec took the chance to stride out of the Parish, but he quickly realized he was still following him.  
The golden knight knelt and the Undead heard the noise of a Homeward Bone breaking; he tried to reach for the knight before he disappeared, trying to tackle him to the ground, to force him to say everything he wasn’t telling him; but he did it too late and thus ended up ducking between the swirls of ash that the spell left behind. He rolled on the ruined tiles, collapsing on the smooth soil on the outside of the Parish.  
“Don’t… go…” he was trying to hold back, but the tears had already started welling up in his eyes; he curled up in a little ball, feeling incredibly cold now that Lautrec was gone. “…you fucking bastard!”  
The skin on his shoulder wrinkled and twisted, resembling the color he had seen on so many of the Hollows he had killed.  
“You knew from the start what this was all about! Why you-“ the hollowing spread down his arm and covered his right palm: when he felt the coldness of death spreading down his limb, the Chosen blinked and tried to see through the tears his now stained, rotten flesh.  
He managed to suppress the pain for the little amount of time he needed to get back inside and fetch his belt: as he rummaged in the little sack he now always kept close at hand, he took out of it a tiny sprinkle of darkness; he took a moment to observe it fluttering in between his fingers, before clenching his grip on it until it waned away and disappeared with an inaudible shriek.

His skin quickly returned to its normal, pale and marred appearance. _Human appearance_ , he told himself as he realized the pain in his chest hadn’t gone away with the Hollowing.  
He touched the spot where his Dark Sign was: somehow, it was burning more than usual. “I hate you.” He mumbled to no one in particular, bathed in the darkness of the dead parish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST! Muahahahahah *thunder and lightning in the background*  
> Yeah, don’t worry. It won’t last.


	9. Not dying on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh I’m so sorry but life has got in the way and I don’t have as much time to write as I used to. I’ll keep writing this because – heck, it’s a three parts story now, no more oneshots. I’ll finish it, I just don’t know how long it’ll take.

He had lost count of the days after a while.  
He had enough humanities to go on a little more, enough not to get out of his refuge, enough to wait until the flame could be rekindled again, although there wasn’t a day he managed not to think about Drake.  
Ashen lake was a far more unsafe place compared to the shrine, but at least there was no chance he would have accidentally stumbled in the Undead: the cult of the Dragons was long dead and he doubted the Chosen would have liked snooping in old dead legends now that he had nothing more than his prophecy to fulfill.  
The days were boring though: after the longest of times, he had no wish to go wandering to snatch souls and humanities. He was well aware that was the first step to hollowing, but knowing that it was just a passing feeling made him strengthen his resolve to wait for the Chosen to go sacrifice himself, then everything would have turned normal again, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself, knowing all too well he would have struggled without anyone to serve.

It was with these thoughts in mind that he kept staring at the crystalline sea before him: the sand was muffling the noise of Solaire’s steps, but Lautrec heard him coming behind him all the same.  
If he was here to take some kind of revenge he would have had a lighting in place of his chest at the moment, and if he wanted to fight him he would have waited for him to be prepared for a fair duel: whichever the case, the golden knight remained sitting, waiting for the sunny knight to state his business.  
“Carim?” Lautrec replied with a bored hum, barely acknowledging his presence.  
“I don’t know why you picked such a place… the almighty sunrays barely filter through this thick foliage!” Lautrec exhaled deeply through the openings of his helmet: he preferred the depressed Solaire over the cheerful standard version.  
“What are you doing here?” his rough voice croaked from inside his helm: it had been a long time since he had had someone to speak with.  
“The Chosen. He has gone missing.”  
Lautrec unconsciously bit his inner cheek, pondering all the possibilities there were: what could have happened to him? The first and most obvious answer was ‘hollowed’, but he knew that obvious not always meant right… although in this particular case he wasn’t so sure of it.

Solaire didn’t say a word, waiting for the golden knight to speak.  
“Since when?”  
“It’s two weeks, now.”  
He snapped back on his feet in no time, turning around to face the other knight “Why do you tell me just now?!” Solaire raised his palms in defense, and just then Lautrec realized he had been shouting.  
“It wasn’t easy finding you, Lautrec.”

He swore undertone and sighed as he made way towards the bonfire he had lit days prior. “Where did you see him last?”

\-----

It was an easy plan: Lautrec checking above ground, Solaire under. He was glad the knight felt comfortable enough to leave the Sun for a couple of days: he was the only one that could have helped him find Drake.  
“Or what remains of him.” He added, mumbling to himself. If he had really hollowed everything would have been for nothing – the cowardly noblish act of pushing him away, the part where he had to slay a hydra singlehandedly, bearing Solaire’s endless mumbling as they decided what to do.

He tried not to think much and kept himself busy; he checked the parish and – very quickly – the – very deadly – Sen’s fortress, headed towards one of the most obvious places: but as he was being carried towards the city of the gods, the idea of checking the Duke’s Archives vanished, as a bigger problem literally appeared on the horizon.

Anor Londo was no more shining with its usual almighty light: as the demons carrying Lautrec approached it, he felt a knot forming in his stomach, immediately understanding that only something very powerful could have changed the Gods city in such a radical way; he heavily landed on the fair tiles of the white platform, then stood up and started making his way down the long set of stairs, an ominous feeling gripping at his spine.  
He readied himself to battle against the giant guards that protected the city, but he found none on his way;  
He gripped his shotels tighter and strode towards the huge plaza just before the elevator: cold and lifeless, the only noise was the one of the wind blowing against the giant dead towers of Anor Londo's castle.  
When he turned his gaze towards the elevator he saw a corpse laying on the ground: as he approached, he realized he had never met an enemy with such armor before; a little trail of blood he hadn't noticed at first was getting away from it and headed towards the room where there once was the bonfire, before he and the Chosen had killed its firekeeper.

He cautiously paced towards the room, hoping to find an answer to all this dead and quiet peace.  
When he stepped through the threshold he wasn’t surprised to see the Undead slouched on the ground, his armor covered in blood and his head tiredly hanging between his hands.  
He must have noticed Lautrec since he now was blocking the only source of light of the room, but yet he made no movement.

"What did you do?" The man inhaled sharply from the inside of his helmet, raising his head and staring at the wall in front of him "Why do you assume it was me?" Lautrec shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the raspy voice coming from inside that helmet clearly belonging to someone half hollowed. "I don't know, maybe because you are the only one in centuries that has lived long enough to fulfill part of the prophecy, or maybe because you love looking for troubles and annoying the shit out of everyone you meet on your way."  
The golden knight took a couple of steps forward, sheathing his weapons. "So? What happened?"  
The Undead sighed again, placing his hands on the sides of his helmet. "Do you ever have the feeling of being watched?" He made a pause, and Lautrec could perceive his uneasiness even behind that thick iron helmet of his.. "Do you ever question your past decisions, because it feels like someone else did it in your place, like when you are forced to do something not because you like it, but because the alternative is far worse?"  
He couldn’t tell whether he was serious or if he was just blurting out a crazy hollowing-induced rant, either way, he knew he had to do something: Lautrec crouched next to him and grabbed his wrist, yanking it away from the side of his head and forcing the Undead to look at him. "You are not answering me."  
"The prophecy..." he bitterly chuckled "...that was a nice lie indeed. Like Gwynevere." He lowered his gaze. "I found a secret entrance, to Lord Gwyn's tomb. Inside, there was Gwyn's third son..." Lautrec frowned: he had heard many legends and tales when he was younger, but never had he heard of a third child. "Gwyndolin, the last god of Anor Londo."  
The Undead simply explained as he raised his gaze again to meet Lautrec's: he was able to take a glimpse at his eyes through the slit of his helmet, and he briefly worried about how blank they looked.  
"They deceived us all. The Gods have been playing this sick game for centuries! For they would never succeed in an age of Darkness!"  
He looked at his side "Frampt and the god, they made thousands of undead go sacrifice themselves. All this time, all those lives wasted… and for what?"  
"Chosen..." Lautrec took his helmet between his hands and turned his face towards him, gently lifting the metal lid shielding the Undead's face: tears stained his now wrinkled cheeks, the curse quickly swallowing his humanity. His thumb immediately brushed away some of the tears that were staining his flesh. “Why did you do this?”  
"What's the point of all of this?! We'll never save the flame, we'll never make things go back as they were! We'd better let everything die and go to waste instead of perpetrating this madness!"

Lautrec felt a fit of rage overtaking him and slapped the Undead on his cheek, making him tilt his head for the force of the blow; he then grabbed the man's collar and forced him to look him in his eyes.  
"How dare you do this to yourself! I'm not letting you die like a dumb stupid!" The Undead's eye teared a bit, his flesh reddening where he had been hit: Lautrec hadn’t realized how angry he had made him. "But there's no purpose! It's all... useless..." he tugged at his collar again. "You won't hollow as long as I say so! Now, get up!" He yanked the Undead back on his feet and pushed him towards the exit of the chamber.  
"Where are you taking me?" He murmured while slouching his feet on the ground. "Shut up and walk."

\-----

Luckily for him, Lautrec knew how to gather humanities quickly: and albeit he would have loved to trick and deceive someone, he had no time to look for fools wandering Lordran alone, and thus he proceeded with his less elegant plan B to fetch humanities.  
If you could survive the basilisks and stand the stench of death that ascended from Blighttown, then the sewers were the most easy place to find some of those fairies. He never questioned why they liked lingering on the rats: maybe, knowing what the undead would have done to them, they preferred to keep away from anything touched by the Curse.

It took him a couple of hours to find the amount he needed: he paced up and down the same route, waiting for the curse to throw more enemies at him, checking on how the Undead was doing from time to time, slouched as he was on top of the stairs from which the whole Gaping Dragon nest could be seen. His stare was always fixed on something far away, at the bottom of the pit, never shifting towards anything else, not even when Lautrec was speaking to him.  
It reminded him of the Fair Lady: he didn’t like that blank stare. He missed his golden eyes, the dimples at the sides of his mouth when he laughed. He missed him.

He paced in front of him, Drake not moving a single muscle. As he crouched next to him, the Undead kept staring down, his tattered lids covering most of his eyes. Lautrec caressed the back of his head, unbuckling the strap keeping his helmet on: he gently took off his helm, the face of the Undead unrecognizable from the man he was before.  
He caresses the side of his face, his cheekbone sharply protruding from his skull.  
“Is this how you reduced yourself without me?” he murmured barely above a whisper.  
The Undead didn’t speak, but he saw how those blank eyes looked for his ones.

Lautrec took the humanities he had gathered out of his satchel and pushed them against the Undead's chest: as they broke and died with tiny little shrieks the Undead regained some color on his cheeks and his skin became smoother, as it was before. He grabbed Lautrec's hand with his and kept him in place as the humanities flowed back into his body.

His studded skin restored, his blue hair growing back, the same sweet ambers eyes he remembered now looking at him. "Thank you." Lautrec turned his gaze to the side and scoffed. "Don't count on it next time." The Undead bit at his inner cheek and slyly intertwined his fingers with Lautrec. "...can you tell me now what you saw without whining?"  
The Undead gulped "...ok. But don't slap me again."  
He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts about what he needed to tell him.  
"I found a doll, some time ago. It was in the cell where I used to be secluded, back in the Asylum. I asked everyone I knew who it might belong to: when I went to the pardoner, he didn't tell me right away what to do with it, but he mentioned the huge painting in Anor Londo." Lautrec knew that painting: it was impossible not to see, even from the top of the ceiling. "When I went there... something... sucked me in." He inhaled sharply before continuing. "Long story short: Velka's presence was anywhere inside of it. With what Seath's archives described as the closest thing to Gwynevere's daughter."  
Lautrec tried to dig in his childhood memories in the attempt of not getting lost in all the mythology the Undead was throwing at him. "Velka is fighting the gods, namely Gwyndolin, and he is fighting Velka; our only purpose is to serve as pawns for their game."  
Lautrec lowered his eyes, thinking. There were many questions popping up in his mind, but only one was really important to him. "Did you kill him?"  
The Undead’s eyes narrowed, a grimace appearing on his face. "...no. I was… too weak. I barely managed to charge through a couple of times, then the Curse overtook me."

Lautrec cupped the Undead’s face: his sorrowful expression was still twisting his features, but he sure looked calmer now than before. “Look at me.” The Undead slowly complied, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “Whatever happens, whenever you are going to take another dumbass decision like the last one, you talk to me first. Understood?” The Undead nodded lightly, his gaze immediately shifting down, unable to stand Lautrec’s one.  
It felt unreal seeing him again. At the very first moment he thought he had been hallucinating again, and still now he wasn’t that sure it was real, that he had been looking for him. He had flattered himself once with such thoughts, and they all brought him to hollowing. He didn’t want to make that mistake again but at the same time it was too difficult holding back, especially when the golden knight leant in and pressed his lips on his, Drake softly reciprocating the kiss. Lautrec leant his forehead against the Undead’s, his breath caressing his skin. “Don’t you dare doing anything like that ever again.” He murmured with his eyes shut. “I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

The Undead slightly widened his eyes at those words and stared as the other man stood up and fetched his helm from the ground, walking towards the way out of the sewers.

Part of him wanted to follow him. Part of him was too confused and hurt to even move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously tho: hunting rats was my daily routine to try to save Queelan :B


	10. Here Again

His blood soaked attire kept making a funny squishy noise as he made his way back inside the burgh: he slashed easily through the enemies, his first dash towards the Capra Demon a distant memory as he now knew those streets better than any Undead that still had enough strength to roam the place. Something shone in the corner of his eye, but he preferred ignoring the man as usual: Lautrec had took a liking in following him from time to time, but he sincerely didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore.  
He was right: he was the Chosen Undead, he had duties to fulfill, people to please and gods to protect. He shouldn’t have wasted his time with the Carim knight in the very first place, thing that he still disliked but had come to accept somehow.

He made his way upwards, climbing the long set of stairs that headed back to the first main square of the burgh.

He sprinted inside and dashed through the hollows bashing their swords at him, parrying and slashing with such a brutal grace that somehow kept feeling unnatural in the cruel realm he lived.  
When nothing more than a bloody fleshy puddle was left laying on the ground – quickly turning to screeching souls – he lifted his halberd again, his back tiredly protesting as he put the shield back in its place.

“I’m definitely not in the mood today.” He said to no one in particular – but loud enough to be heard by anyone following him – as he brushed his hair back, their usual blue color masked by the blood of the last great soul he had slain.  
Drake wasn’t still sure taking the big wolf’s life was worth that ring, but as usual he was not given a choice but kill anything that stood in his way. That was the Chosen’s job.  
“Shove off, Lautrec.” He murmured as he made his way on the narrow bridge, dodging quickly the firebombs thrown by the enemies and charging towards more hollows, all those feelings still pressing underneath his skin making him fight a little more violently than usual.  
It was just when he had freed most of the plaza and was killing the last spear-wielding soldiers that he completely flipped off seeing that shine in the corner of his eye again.

“What did I just tell you?!”  
The halberd hit the hollow just above its collar-bone, chopping its head right off its shoulders before Drake stuck the weapon between the shoulder blades of the still moving body, pinning it to the ground.  
“You’re gonna stalk me for the rest of my life?” he roared towards Lautrec, who was now leaning against the side of the wall: the golden knight simply shrugged in response.

“I’m just checking on you. Seeing whether you’re keeping your word.”  
Drake pulled the halberd off the body of the hollow now laying on the ground with a grunt, before replying almost through gritted teeth “First off, I never promised I would talk to you. You’re probably the last person I would look for if I had a real problem.” He strode in front of the knight, every fiber of his body tense as he angrily stared at the man in front of him. “Furthermore, I don’t plan on hollowing. To be honest, I’m not sure whether I would have the time to do that since just two of the great soul carriers are still alive, and the way towards them is already clear.”  
He turned around, his fingers clenching tighter on the halberd “So thank you for your compassion Lautrec, but go stick it up your ass elsewhere!”

“You think I liked going through this?” the accusatory note in his tone made the Undead even angrier.  
“Now you’re saying it’s my fault?!” He snapped around so quickly he took advantage of the momentum of his halberd to swing it against Lautrec, who easily caught it in the curve of his shotel, their stares fixing in each other’s behind the slits of their helmets.  
“Surely isn’t mine!” he grunted as he clanged his other shotel against the halberd and pushed it away from him, but Drake swung it against him one more time.  
“Yes it is!” he roared, this time the golden knight dodged the blow seeing it was too powerful to be stopped. “You knew from the beginning how I was feeling about this!”

They went on dodging, parrying, attacking and feigning for a while, until the golden knight hooked one of his shotels behind the blade of the halberd and managed to pull it away from the Undead’s grip: as soon as Drake was left unarmed he started murmuring his spells, his hand reaching for the catalyst hanging at his belt as his right hand was set aflame by the powers Quelana had granted him with.

He didn’t know enough magic to be so confident to leave his weapons behind, but surely he knew enough to cast a couple of spells.  
Fireballs were by far his weapon of choice, so Lautrec was taken off guard when a lightning pierced right through his shoulder, releasing in the air the stench of burnt flesh and blood. “What should I do?! Tell you how lucky I am to have you back!?” the Undead strode towards the golden knight, who was now kneeling on the ground “How so fucking pleased I should be to see you again?!”

The shotel weakly slashed again against the hand that was grabbing the catalyst, but a magic barrier stopped it and pulled it out of Lautrec’s grasp.  
The knight was left gasping in pain on the ground, the Chosen grabbing the underside of his helm and gently pulling it away, letting it clunk on the ground at his side.  
His hand rested on top of Lautrec’s head for a moment before sliding on its back and grabbing him by the hair, his other hand wrapping tightly around his throat.

He kept staring at him, preparing to mutter the spell for his last fireball and burn away his throat; but when he was about to start, he heard a strangled whine escaping Lautrec’s lips: gasping for air, he murmured “Wait-” There were tears in his eyes – mainly caused by the choking, the Undead reminded himself – still, one of the golden knight’s hands softly reached to touch the Undead’s forearm, silently pleading to stop, to talk to him. Their gazes connected and Drake’s stare softened for a moment. “Please.” He had rarely heard that word leaving the golden knight’s mouth. The flames died from his fingertips, the hold he had on the knight’s throat almost became a caress as he wrapped his arm around him and pulled Lautrec’s arm above his shoulders, slowly taking him towards the bonfire.

The Undead helped Lautrec drink from the estus flask; it was his fault after all if he had got one less lung at the moment. The golden knight almost coughed as the potion regenerated his mauled body, the chosen carefully avoiding his gaze.

“Look… if you really want to talk…“ he awkwardly scratched the back of his head before taking in a deep breath “…can we do it somewhere else?”

\-----------

It wasn’t difficult reaching the old abandoned house in the burgh: albeit he hadn’t visited in a while, Drake was pleased to see most of it was still in order. A couple of chairs toppled, some rugs missing, but it was mostly fine.  
He placed his weapons in the usual spot and sat against the gaunt table, working on the straps keeping the armor on his arms together.

“You wanted to talk? Talk then.” He said dryly, not even looking towards the knight.  
“I will if you listen to me.”  
“I am listening.”  
“No you’re not.” Those pitch black eyes found his again, and suddenly there was a knot forming in his stomach. “You just want me to say whatever I want and be gone, and I’m not here to waste my breath.“

Drake inhaled deeply, lowering his gaze. “Why?” he almost shouted. “I want to know the reason for all of this. Do you like fucking with my mind so much??” At that moment, he could swear he had seen the golden knight stagger for a brief second.  
“Because this isn’t solving problems, this hasn’t made things any better! … because maybe… I might have been wrong.” He replied shouting as well.  
“And why would I care?!” he took a wide step towards him, his golden eyes fixing on the taller man’s ones. “We’re done, Lautrec! You wanted this!”  
“I didn’t _want_ this!” he is so close he can feel his breath on his skin, but he knows he has to fight back the familiar sensation traveling straight towards his groin.  
“And what do you want from me then?!”  
“I want to know that wherever you are, you won’t go hollow, you dumb fuck!”  
He could feel it in the air, the moment of acknowledgment, when his eyes darted for the briefest of seconds on the other man’s lips, scowling himself for letting such a huge tell slip so easily.  
He tried to take a step back but Lautrec closed the gap between them and crushed his lips against his so quickly their teeth almost thud against each other’s: as his mouth lingered on his, Drake pushed him away, but regretted the decision almost immediately, leaning in again to kiss him deeper.

He softly reciprocated the kiss, their lips moving in sync as Lautrec’s hands trailed down his sides and hooked his thumbs in Drake’s belt, pulling him against himself, his hands wrapping around his buttocks and gently pressing his body against him.  
“Stop.” He wheezed, his lips finding again that delicious spot on his neck and he barely managed to suppress a moan.  
“I cannot.” he pushed him against the table again, Drake sitting on top of it as soon as his lower back hit against the wooden surface.  
In a moment his pants were gone, the Chosen’s hands caressing and wrapping around Lautrec’s torso, removing pieces of armor as he found them.  
He knew he was probably going to regret this, but he had missed feeling this way.  
Drake’s hand trailed on the man’s side and shoulder, finding then the back of his neck, pressing him against himself more urgently and needy than he had ever done before.  
He sighed and kissed him again when he sank deeper inside of him, his mind finally finding solace from all the thoughts that had been tormenting him now that he was in Lautrec’s arms, where nothing seemed to matter but the two of them.  
Their fingers intertwined as they toppled over the edge together.

His cheeks tinted of a cute pink color as he realized what he had done. He dragged a hand across his face as he stared at the cracked ceiling. “Gods- I’m not drunk enough- for this-“ he wheezed as his lungs took in quick breaths.  
As soon as Lautrec allowed him to sit up he put back on some of his clothes and walked to the crate where a last bottle of siegbrau was waiting to be opened.  
He glanced at the golden knight one last time before walking outside, silently inviting him to join him.  
The stairs on the outside were pretty cold, but maybe he needed something to cool down. He hadn’t been thinking straight after his encounter with Gwyndolin and this was just another alarming sign that showed him how badly he needed to complete his mission to relink the fire, before he would have changed his mind about it and fled from Lordran forever.

They sat there silently for a while, passing the bottle to each other from time to time.  
“Why did you come looking for me?”  
“You’re the Chosen Undead. Were you to fail-“  
He inhaled sharply in the middle of the sip and scowled at him “Oh, cut the bull. Now you’re just insulting my intelligence.”  
Lautrec took a moment before replying “I do not wish to see you go hollow. You deserve to die in a more proper way: a broken-heart would have been simply pathetic.”  
Drake raised his eyebrows, knowing there was more he wasn’t telling him. “And that’s it?  
“Yeah, that’s pretty it.”  
“Liar.”  
“Harlot.”  
“You’re the one who kissed me.”  
“You’re the one who opened his legs wider.”  
Drake weighed that sentence for a moment before murmuring “Touché.” and taking another generous swig from the bottle, heat spreading in his body as the alcohol warmly oozed in his veins.  
“You know, people keep saying that you’re just this kind of nosy backstabber and, don’t get me wrong, I totally agree with them,” he slobbered while idly looking at him, the wine making him look even more sleepy than what he should have been “but sometimes you do stuff like this that force me to remind that you’re a person. With feelings and such.”  
He passed back the bottle.  
“Touching. Did Solaire help you write it down or did you just improvise it?” The Undead gazed at the sky one more time, grinning “See? Even when you’re this sassy little shit, I love it.” He exhaled deeply. “Why did you have to leave, Lautrec?”  
He inhaled sharply and looked inside the bottle, closing one eye to see how much of it was left. “It’s…complicated. As always.” He brought the glass lip to his mouth and tilted his head back, drinking the last drops of it. “I’m sorry.”  
Wait. What?  
Did he just…?  
Damn. He knew the wine was a bad idea.

“You bet you fuckin’ are!”  
He didn’t want this to end this way. He sincerely wanted to make up for what he had tried to do, but he knew at this point only something either very great or very stupid would impress Drake.  
But maybe he had an idea that would prove itself valid under both aspects.  
The man slowly – almost dramatically – took off the golden ring from his finger and threw it in the void in front of them, watching as it turned to dust even before touching the ground.  
Drake looked at it: there was something resembling satisfaction on his face, but also doubt and skepticism.

“So you think we’re even now?” The golden knight exhaled deeply. “No. But that’s a start.” He sighed and dragged one palm over his face: he knew there was just one way out of this, and if he had to tell the truth to gain his trust again, so be it.

His hand dropped on his knee again, and Lautrec inhaled sharply and licked his lips before starting to talk.  
“I crave for you the way a drowning man strives for air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.” He wasn’t looking at him, but Drake could tell he was tense, his shoulders stiff as he chose carefully his words.  
“I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn’t something about you at all. It was just you.”  
He smirks, still looking at the void in front of them, and something different from the booze warmed the Undead’s chest.

His tongue quickly licked his lips, a grin replacing his frown- he was either going to laugh or cry, but his face hadn’t decided yet which of the two.  
“You’ve slipped under my skin, invaded my blood and seized my heart.” He kept staring at his face, trying to detect any trace of another lie, but he could find none.  
“The truth? I like you. A lot. I like you more than I thought I would and that scares me.”

“I can’t get over you, and you can’t deny what’s between us.” He said that as a matter of fact, knowing it to be the truth. “You mean so much to me. I… I think I’m in love with you, Drake.”  
The Undead was left speechless, staring at him.  
“I’m so afraid of losing you I feel paralyzed. But I can’t give up on you- on what we… have.” He admitted with something resembling chagrin in his voice, and Drake discreetly covered Lautrec’s hand with his palm.  
“I’m yours, if you’ll have me.” He murmurs just above a whisper, black eyes meeting his for the first time since he had started speaking.  
Drake closed the gap and Lautrec allowed him to place a sweet chaste kiss on his mouth, softly kissing back. And suddenly, all that anger the Undead had felt had somehow vanished in thin air as Lautrec’s lips seemed to finally soothe his aching soul back to peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw too much Gallavich. Sorry not sorry.  
> Also, I just randomly looked up romantic quotes – part of this dialogue was patched together and clearly doesn’t belong to my poor writing skills P:


	11. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solaire and Sieglinde.  
> Y E S

Another lazy dull day was coming to an end: as the sun set just above the rim of the horizon, the Undead woke up with a little yawn, slightly stretching his arms without moving too much. As he opened his eyes he saw Lautrec’s sleeping form laying next to him, one arm loosely wrapped around him while the Undead was resting his head against his chest.  
He closed his eyes again, the light filtering through the windows of the parish warmly caressing his skin.

He wasn’t proud of it, but he hadn’t taken long to fall back in Lautrec’s arms. Predictably, he might have added.  
He had made some propositions, but after that speech he had given him, after seemingly the first time he had been completely honest with him since they had met, he just knew he wouldn’t have held that grudge for long.  
It felt great being with him again, no matter what a douchebag he had been. After all, he knew their so called relationship wouldn’t have lasted for long, for more pressing matters awaited him.

His eyes drifted back towards him and he stared at the man’s hard features, somehow softer now that he was sleeping. He hummed lightly when Drake moved to kiss his neck, tilting his head upwards as the Undead left a trail of kisses on his throat.  
As their stares connected, Lautrec’s hand found the back of Drake’s head, pressing his mouth against his in a tender kiss. The Undead levered himself on his elbows and raised himself the little he needed to tilt his head and deepen the kiss, Lautrec’s thigh brushing against his groin, and as the golden knight’s hands rested on his lower back, he broke the kiss, wheezing a little, his cheeks warmly blushing.

“Evening to you too.” The golden knight smiled, and Drake kissed him again before trying to get out of the bed- but Lautrec had already taken him by the wrist and pushed him back against the mattress, straddling his torso.  
“In the mood for playing?” Drake asked smirking, his arms winding around the other man’s thighs.  
Lautrec’s reply was lowering on top of him and kissing his neck, nibbling lightly at his skin: Drake stifled a chuckle. “We must go to the Shrine, we’ll be late! Sieglinde and Siegward-“ “Yes, the Catarina knights are parting. I haven’t forgotten.”  
“They’re friends! They’ve helped-“ Lautrec stared at him a tad more intensely and a flash of Siegmeyer’s misadventures passed in front of his eyes. “…they’re friends.” He said again with a smile, but the other man simply shook his head and looked down, exhaling deeply.

Drake caressed his cheek and brushed back his dark locks: he had a neutral expression on, but by now he had learnt how to recognize when he was holding back something.  
“C’mon: if you don’t fuck me now, you’ll fuck me later.” He jokingly remarked, trying to lighten the mood.  
“It’s not that.” He lowered himself on top of him and pecked at his lips. “… albeit it’s annoying.”  
Drake didn’t need any more clues: the look on his face spoke for itself. “You know I don’t have a choice. It’s either my life or our world, and my soul isn’t worth all of this... all of you.” There was silence as he sat back on his heels, his ebony eyes skimming his face, from his golden irises to his sharp cheekbones and full lips.  
“One week.” Drake levered himself on his elbows, sitting up, something resembling worrisome as he listened to Lautrec.

“Just one more week. I want to…” there wasn’t an easy way to say it, a happy way. Not even for the silver-tongued Carim knight. “…properly say goodbye to you.”  
The Undead smiled at him: tenderly, lovingly. Even knowing he had to sacrifice himself hadn’t made him forget who he was: that’s probably what he admired most about him.

“As you wish, love.” He said, tenderly placing a kiss on his lips.

\-----

The elevator clunked to a halt, and Drake was the first to step out of it.  
Solaire had had this idea of throwing together a nice little party among the few survivors left before Sieglinde and Siegmeyer departed again towards Catarina. The worst part was fetching the wine from Anor Londo while fighting against Gwyndolin’s followers, but they couldn’t salute the knights without some proper drinks.

Solaire and Sieglinde danced as Laurentius played a cheery tune on an ancient lute found somewhere around the burgh, Drake and Siegmeyer joining in the dance as Griggs gave them an icy sideway glance and retreated towards the firekeeper.  
Lautrec stood to the side, leaning against one of the rocky ruins, keeping an eye out for Patches.

It had been tough arriving here. He had lost count of the people who had hollowed before seeing this moment.  
Petrus and Rhea, the crestfallen, even Big Hat Logan himself. Not to mention all the people they had killed along the way.  
The ghost of Gwyn’s thirdborn’s revenge still loomed above them, but if Drake had spoken the truth it was unlikely Gwyndolin would have stopped the Chosen, not at this point at least.

Nito had fallen, now only the four kings remained, and his time with the Undead was quickly coming to an end. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for a bit longer than a standard blink, disregarding the blue haired man quickly pacing towards him.  
“What’s with the long face?” he nudged at his arm and somehow a smile crept back on his lips. “C’mon, I need a knight!” he happily said, grabbing his hand and dragging him back in the center of their makeshift grassy ballroom.  
Solaire had left Sieglinde to dance with her father; a Catarina knight without their armor was a rare sight: albeit more graceful without all that weight upon them, their performance paled in comparison to the two knights.  
As Lautrec brushed up those ballroom teachings his mother had beaten into him during his childhood so long ago, he simply leant against the Undead’s ear and murmured “Follow me.”

Being a former spy, Drake knew the basics of dancing, albeit he had never found someone he could swing so easily with. Maybe they were both a little rusty after all those years spent on the road and not participating to feasts, but he had never felt so good at someone’s side.  
Some of their moves were smooth and perfect, some other clumsy, and every time one of them tripped in his own feet the other held him closer, laughing, fully enjoying being in Lordran after so much time spent fighting.  
Their lips brushed together in the lightest of kisses, something few would have even noticed – albeit Drake could hear a faint ‘aww’ coming from Sieglinde as they stopped dancing, Siegmeyer cheerily pouring generous drinks.

\-----

“Maybe… I could have used something like this.” “’Maybe’?” the Undead snickered a bit, lightly shaking his head as they looked above the cemetery Cliffside, alone in the dim light of the moon.  
“Admit it: you were enjoying this as much as I was. Maybe a little more.”

“Alright, alright, you… weren’t wrong.” Drake rolled his eyes at his stubbornness but let him close the distance between them and place his hands on his hips. “And you have my thanks.” The Undead smiled, wrapping his arms around his neck. “And you look like you already have an idea to repay me…” he smiled again as he tilted his head, their lips connecting in a sweet kiss.  
He didn’t want to leave him; it had been so long since he had found somewhere where he’d belong, someone who could make him feel like this. It felt unfair leaving this caring liar after such a short time, potentially having an immortality to share.

“Get a room, you two!” he overheard Patches screaming from the other side of the shrine, but the bald man widened his eyes and disappeared behind a wall as soon as he saw the Undead’s hand reaching for the catalyst still hanging from the back of his belt.

“Will you just hit him with that spell already?”  
“I want to keep him guessing how much a lighting could hurt.” He joined Lautrec at his side and let him wind his arm around his shoulders, Drake’s hand wrapping around the other man’s back as they walked towards the bonfire.

\-----

“Well, aren’t you and Sieglinde a pretty little thing?” a new layer of blush tinted Solaire’s cheeks, this time not because of the ale. “She is… a rather funny lady to have around.”  
“You like her!” Drake squealed in an oddly high tone for him, Solaire shushing him by bringing his index against his lips.  
“She’s a fair and strong maiden who knows how to handle herself in combat. If she were to overhear us-“ “She likes you too, by the way.”  
“…what?”  
“Hey, I lived predicting people’s intentions. I’m a trustworthy source.”  
“But your love life is a mess.”  
There was a moment of awkward silence between the two, before Drake took a quick sip from his jug. “…well, you’re not wrong.”

“You and Lautrec…” Solaire made a pause, as if wishing Drake could foresee what he was about to ask.  
“Are you trying to hint at an apologize?” he murmured smirking, knowing it to be impossible.  
“I am not.” He replied with the same shit-eating smile the Undead had plastered on his face. “I strongly believe this to be a distraction, but since I made mistakes as well I am in no position to judge you.”  
“Mistakes? You were about to worship a fucking bug, dude.” The Undead scoffed at him, smiling, looking in the distance, where he could faintly make out Lautrec’s form in the darkness. “At least what I worship is one of the finest specimen of liars of all Carim.”

“Are you sure you can trust him again?”  
“No. And in fact, I don’t.” he murmured with a sigh as he stared into the flames of the bonfire in front of them. “It’s just… something for the time being. When we’ll go towards the flame, it won’t matter. I promise.” Solaire – even if a little tipsy at the moment – with the years had become able to read into other people’s eyes: what he saw in Drake’s was not doubt, but it wasn’t determination either. It mostly was just chagrin.  
“…I’m sorry.” Was all he could murmur. “Don’t be: you weren’t the one to throw this prophecy at us.”  
“If I could sacrifice myself in your place…”  
“No. I gathered the souls, it is me who shall burn in Gwyn’s place.”  
He looked at the other man’s features for a moment, raising his jug. “You are a brave man, Chosen.” The Undead this the same. “And you a good friend.”

As they were about to clink the jugs together to toast, their heads snapped back towards the direction of Lautrec and Siegmeyer when they heard the noise of crates breaking and pained groans.

\-----

“Just a few more steps…” he murmured as he practically dragged the knight towards the bed and let him fall on it, kneeling to undo the knots on his boots. “I can’t recall a thing.” He moaned, and Drake smiled. “I’d bet so. You almost outdrank a Catarina knight.”  
“I- what?” Drake pulled Lautrec’s feet on the mattress as well and turned towards him.  
“What happened?” he gracelessly groaned while Drake sat next to him on their bed. He smiled at his hurt partner and whispered his response with a loving tone.  
“You and Siegmeyer finished all the ale and then challenged each other in an arm wrestling contest. You’re drunk and you probably sprained your wrist.” He said as he combed Lautrec’s hair with his fingers.  
“…who won?”  
He and Solaire had found Siegmeyer laying on his side unconscious, a couple of crates shattered underneath his weight, while Lautrec was laying on his back, his form painfully curled around his forearm, still conscious, albeit barely.  
“I genuinely have no idea. I’d call it a draw.”

“Well, we did good, right?” his eyes tiredly cracked open as he smiled at the Undead “They must’ve had a good time.”  
“They’re Catarina knights. As far as I know, if there aren’t any sprained limbs by the end of the evening, it was not a good party.”  
Drake lightly pecked at his lips, combing his fingers through his hair.  
“You taste like a goddamn distillery.”  
“Might be a good idea not to leave any lit candles around then.”  
Drake would have liked thinking that making a parish explode in that way would have been something close to impossible, but with all that siegbrau? Damn, he seriously didn’t know.

“Rest.” As soon as the Undead tried to stand up again Lautrec had already pulled him back on the mattress by his arm, hugging him tightly.  
“Alright, alright, I got it.” Drake murmured chuckling, shifting to rest his head against Lautrec’s chest, his heartbeat thumping in his ear.  
“You’re not going anywhere. That’s our deal.”  
His fingertips still felt icy, while Lautrec’s skin felt so warm he would have never left his side if he could.  
“I know. I love you.” He simply murmured as the Carim knight hummed in response, fading fast in a drunken sleep.

When Lautrec’s limbs had gone completely limp, he carefully sat up and tenderly kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger on his skin for a while longer. “I love you.” He repeated again, knowing it was one of the few things he was absolutely sure of. Tears prickled his eyes as he silently got out of their bed and picked up his halberd, knowing this was the night his destiny would have been fulfilled. He silently paced away from his lover’s sleeping form and towards the coldness of Lordran’s night, where blood and death were the only things waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I’ve heard too much about YOI. Oh well, until I don’t make a modern au, there won’t be any skating involved. (if someone is actually reading this seriously, well, I’m sorry, and I know it’s gone completely ooc and it’s actually pretty bad, but I love writing about these two <3)


	12. The Rekindling

The blackness of a sleep without nightmares was oddly comforting, used as he was to the constant dreams of death and despair, yet he could feel there was something wrong with it, albeit he couldn’t quite understand what it was. He could feel a somehow heavy burden settling on his chest, his hand trying to reach out of habit at his side, seeking comfort but finding none of the warmth it was expecting.  
Lautrec’s eyes cracked open as soon as his brain managed to crawl out of its sleepy haze: the sun filtered barely through the windows, covered as it was in looming clouds. As his eyes adjusted to the new light he realized the place on the bed next to him was indeed empty.  
He sat up on the bed and slowly put his feet on the cold floor, closing his eyes as nausea and dizziness momentarily flooded his senses.

He managed to get back on his feet and take a couple of steps around the room and then downstairs, towards the entrance of the parish: Drake wasn’t there either.  
Then he realized he had seen something missing from their room: he strode back inside, what was just a doubt becoming more and more a certainty.

The armor was gone. His weapons as well.  
He would have told him if he was going to slain some lord, even if he was hangover. If Drake had been doing something he didn't want him to be aware of, it could have been only one thing.  
He fetched his golden armor and put it on in a hurry, running downstairs and taking the elevator to Firelink Shrine while fastening the belts of the plates on his forearms.

As he looked up, he noticed the first change: the crow was gone. He gulped as he tried to elaborate what could have possibly drawn away such a majestic and trustworthy creature, but the only answer he had for that matter only heaved the weight on his chest more.

The elevator clunked to a halt and he walked with long steps towards the center of the structure.  
“Drake?” his voice echoed through the thick walls and grassy plains of the Shrine, no answer coming from anybody - not that he was expecting one either.

He looked inside the central building: the serpent was gone. The big stone doors on the floor were still open, but he was nowhere to be found, just like Patches and the mage and the pyromaniac seemed to have disappeared as well.

He bit his lower lip hard, trying to drag his mind out of its dizzy state and think.

Suddenly, it dawned on him that there was someone that simply couldn’t leave the Shrine: he turned around, spotting in the distance the flames of the bonfire still dancing in their fireplace.  
He rushed down the small set of stairs that led to Anastacia’s prison: the girl was still there, gaze hanging low on her lap, mumbling something to herself with eyes shut.  
“Where has the Chosen gone?” he asked bluntly, intently staring at her from behind his thick helm.  
The girl didn’t make any sign of noticing him, leaving the knight waiting frustrated just outside of the bars, but since he wasn’t leaving, Ana murmured barely above a whisper “The man you’re looking for is here no more.”

“Keeper?” this time it was not as much as a question but a growl, as the man grabbed the bars and leant in “Care to elaborate?”  
The girl shot him an icy glare through the bars before lowering her eyes again on her lap, speaking without acknowledging his presence.  
“He descended towards the kiln with Solaire and the kingseeker this morn.”  
He took a step back and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes threading around the wall as he tried to take the situation in “They still needed the four kings’ souls.” He mumbled, more to himself than to Anastacia.  
“They already possessed it, else they wouldn’t have gone to slay the sunlight father.”

He had… deceived him? Finally managed to lie to him?  
Lautrec closed his eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath: he secluded the feeling of his heart sinking in the back of his mind, focusing on what to do. There had to be a way to catch up with them- to stop them- he had no time to consider whether it would have been a good thing or not.

He ran back on top of the stairs, striding towards the great opening in the floor of the Shrine: he stopped inches from it, leaning a bit inwards to peer inside: all he could see was darkness for many feet, albeit there was light at the end. 

He cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Kingseeker!”  
A dark, elongated form crawled back from the darkness, soaring a few feet above Lautrec.  
“What is it?”

Lautrec had no intention to give a shot to a diplomatic speech: he knew the snake wouldn’t have allowed him access to the Kiln for any reason, and normally he would have slowly convinced him, but this time he was in too much of a hurry to banter his way out of this.  
Before Frampt could retreat, he had already unsheathed his dagger and jumped towards the ancient snake, digging the blade through his scales the little he needed to control the fall.  
He heard the voice of the king-seeker reverberating through his whole body as he screeched in pain, the floor of the Kiln getting closer and closer.  
He jumped at the right moment and rolled on the ground, ignoring the weird feeling his right ankle gave him as he badly landed and sprinting towards the flame before the serpent could catch up with him.

He stretched his hand towards it and felt the flames linger on his fingertips just for a brief moment before the king-seeker’s teeth clenched around his arm: he jerked his head around quickly, sending him flying towards the opposite end of the cave, and he just couldn’t prevent his body from hitting against the wall, his spine snapping at an impossible angle was the last sound he heard before everything faded quickly to black.

The cold and darkness were steadily replaced by the scent of ashes and warmth oozing through his body: as the fire regenerated him, he sprinted towards the now great open doors. He heard Frampt’s jaw snapping close just behind his head but he was already far out of reach: a little more tired, a little more hollowed, but he hadn’t felt so alive in a really long time.

He saw the ghosts – or the remnants of the memories – of the Dark Knights marching in front of him, the landscape quickly changing from the glorious entrance to the ashen remains of the Kiln of the First Flame.  
As he saw a Black Knight looking towards him in the distance, he unsheathed his shotels: when he reached for it, he lowered and glided on the ground at its right, just out of the reach of its greatsword, and brought both his blades against the knight’s leg; a sickening sound was heard as they cut through the armor and what remained of flesh and muscles, but Lautrec immediately stood up again and kept running towards the giant colosseum standing in front of him, the mauled knight barely falling down with a thud as it tried to crawl back on its feet.

He saw another knight standing in the distance, guarding the only access to the path that lead forward: it prepared to strike with its spear but just when it was about to hit him Lautrec dodged on his right and used his whole body to push the knight – who was being dragged forward by the force of its own blow – over the edge, sending it tumbling towards its death.

Wheezing, he looked onward, seeing more and more knights gathering before him, shields up and fingers clenched on their swords, ready to create a barrier between him and their lord.  
He took in some deep breaths, but just when he was about to sprint towards them a deafening scream was heard echoing through the valley, forcing him to lean against the rocky precarious wall, covering his ears as he watched all the black knights in front of him suddenly falling to the ground, limp.

He had to blink several times before understanding he hadn’t imagined it, and he threaded carefully on the narrow path that separated him from the terrain: seeing no sign of life coming from the knights, he proceeded forward, climbing up the steep cliff that separated him from the huge archway.

By the time he had reached the entrance of the huge colosseum, his legs and lungs were burning and the heavy feeling on his chest had just worsened, but he knew he could just go forward at this point, not even knowing how and if he would have got out of there still in one piece.  
It felt so deja vù. All the running, all the fighting… he wasn’t sure why he was doing that anymore. Drake had totally messed with his perception of priorities. Now the only thing he cared about was whether or not the man he loved was still alive.

He stepped on the soft ashy ground, Gwyn nowhere to be found and the dim light coming from the First Flame getting weaker and weaker, the source of diversity slowly and silently dying in front of his eyes.  
He took a couple of steps forward, little tears prickling his eyes from the effort of getting there and because of the poor results so far.  
He dragged his hands on the sides of his helm, lifting it from his head and letting it clunk to his side on the ground with a soft thud, his eyes skimming around the environment and catching trails on the ash, movements, parries, dodges, hits, like an endless dance that was never broken, for the outcome had always been the same.

He followed the trail of blood with his eyes, looking for its source. When he found him, he wished he had never woken up from that dreamless sleep.  
The wounded and marred body of his beloved undead coughed underneath the dust and ash, the sooth covering his bloody clothes.  
“Drake!” the disfigured man’s right eye opened, looking around as if unable to focus on him.  
“La…Lautrec?” a raspy whine called for him.  
“I can’t- I don’t see… anything.”  
As he quickly closed the distance between them, he realized the Undead was trembling. It was not just the cold and pain: he was scared.

He knelt beside him, softly murmuring every word fully knowing they could be the last he would have ever told him.  
The wound on his chest kept dampening his clothes with more blood, his face reduced to a mask of that dark crimson liquid as another gash was marring half of his face, his left eye missing from its socket.  
“What… are you doing… here?”  
“It doesn’t matter.” All that anger he had felt before had subsided into a silent pain. It didn’t matter how angry he was at him: now nothing felt like it mattered anymore.  
All he could do was stare at him, too afraid to even touch him.

Gwyn was dead, and the fire would have soon been as well.

“…I’m sorry.” Drake gasped. “I failed you. I hope… I’m still on time to fix… things…”  
His right golden eye stared into the void in front of him, and as Lautrec gazed into the far dying light in the center of the room a jealous, selfish idea started settling in his brain.  
“You never failed me.” He murmured. “You’re a damn variable. And I love you for that.”  
_But you’re dying. And I just can’t let it happen._

Lautrec’s fingers caressed Drake’s hair softly.  
“I’m sorry. I never meant to flee like that, but-“ his eye tiredly opened again, vaguely looking for his black ones. “Lautrec, I would never… leave your side if I could. And I… I _can’t._ ”  
He gulped soundly, his hand reaching for Lautrec’s forearm and faintly squeezing it.  
“Bring me… to the fire…” His only sane eye stared at him as he whimpered that before it weakly closed again. Lautrec looked above his shoulder, towards the last embers quickly blackening and getting colder and colder.

On one hand there was spending the rest of his immortal life as a miserable soul without purpose. Without the goddess, without Drake, he would have hollowed in months, weeks more probably. On the other, literally giving up the world for him. Living in a perennial Oolacile, without the possibility to escape. Together maybe, they could have lasted a couple of days before Darkness swarmed them and outnumbered the undead in the whole Lordran.  
“L-lautrec?” he faintly murmured, waiting for a response.  
It wasn’t an easy decision to take, nor one he felt worthy of taking, but at that moment, the knight knew exactly what he could have never given up on.

“Drake… the fire…” he paused, just the little he needed to convince him “it’s gone.”  
“What?!” _Just a lie. Nothing more._ He kept telling himself, ignoring the feeble voice of his conscience as he was used to.  
“It- it can’t be! It-“ he trembled again, his hand squeezing harder on his.

“I’m sorry.” That was… partially true, albeit for different reasons.  
He reached for the flask hanging from his belt, helping the Undead to sit up, leaning heavily against his body as he whimpered in pain and sobbed in shame.  
“You are no use dead.” The Undead feebly nodded in agreement, unsure whether he shared that opinion or not, groping for his wrist and nearing the glass lip to his own.  
The Estus wouldn’t have worked right away, and if the blindness stayed for a little longer, then maybe… maybe he could have also had Drake around for a while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, you really thought you were done with me? Oh, hell no!  
> dundunduuuuun  
> Yes this has a second part. And a third part. Because, as the cheesy writer that I am, I will never stop shipping them. :B see you as soon as I begin the next chapter guys, thanks for dropping by my fic and leaving awesome comments and kudos! Have a great day!


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